European Union member countries should deal collectively with their most important energy suppliers, particularly Russia, so that individual countries are less vulnerable to supply disruptions caused by foreign conflicts, the International Energy Agency said in a report Thursday.
The report, a wide-ranging review of the E.U.'s energy policy, comes as the conflict between Russia and Georgia raises concerns in the E.U. that Russia will increasingly use its vast energy supplies to wield political power over countries in Eastern Europe and the Baltic region. Europe relies heavily on imported oil and gas from Russia.
Russia, however, is more dependent on the E.U. market than the E.U. is on Russian supply, Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, said in a press conference here Thursday. The E.U. gets 30% of its energy supply from Russia, while Russia exports 70% of its oil and gas to the E.U.
"The dependency on Europe is much higher for Russia, rather than the other way around," Tanaka said.
Countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are much more vulnerable to Russian supply disruptions than the E.U. as a whole. Russia cut gas supplies in January, 2006, resulting in shortages in some European countries.
The event showed a "a strategic weakness in the E.U., which the commission should consider rectifying by developing a set of policies that will enable emergency cooperation across the E.U., should gas supplies again be curtailed," the report said.
A "poorly developed" external energy policy may have delayed important energy supply projects, according to the IEA. report, such as the Nabucco pipeline, which would bypass Russia and bring central Asian natural gas from Turkey into Europe. The pipeline project is seen as particularly important after fighting between Russia and Georgia nearly damaged key oil and gas pipelines in Georgia.
Building nuclear plants in the E.U. will help reduce the E.U.'s dependence on imported natural gas, the report said, and will be crucial to meeting the E.U.'s goals of cutting carbon dioxide emissions. As the continent's nuclear fleet ages, the commission should prepare a policy "roadmap" to help member countries that want to build new plants.
The IEA's report also urges the European Commission to push for full separation of electricity and gas distribution systems from energy suppliers, a policy that has sparked opposition from countries seeking to protect their national energy companies. European energy ministers in June adopted a provision that gives big companies other alternatives rather than full separation of supply and distribution systems.