The British government is pushing EU leaders to back a new energy security plan to wean Europe off Russian energy over the next 25 years by ramping up imports from new sources, including shale gas from the US and natural gas from Iraq. The proposal, distributed to European capitals ahead of last week’s summit in Brussels, also calls for speeding up development of a pipeline route through Azerbaijan and Turkey that would bring gas to Europe from the Caspian Sea, avoiding Russian territory.
"Crises in Ukraine in 2006, 2009 and more recently have repeatedly illustrated the need to ensure Europe is not over-reliant on a limited number of sources of energy or vulnerable to external pressure,” reads the paper, referring to the current stand-off with Russia as well as previous crises where state-owned Gazprom cut off supplies to Ukrainian pipelines over pricing and unpaid debts. Although most of the proposals included in the pre-summit "non-paper” have been mooted before, many have languished since the 2009 crisis, where the Ukrainian shutdown left much of south-eastern Europe without heat during a bitterly cold winter. Moscow has insisted it is a reliable supplier to Europe, noting supplies were not cut off at the height of the Cold War.
But EU diplomats said pre-summit deliberations have focused on reviving such energy security proposals with the topic scheduled to be debated on Friday morning. "Since the Russians turned off the gas last time, quite a lot has been done,” said an EU diplomat from a British ally involved in pre-summit deliberations. "That said, Europe is still very exposed.”
Despite the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea, the summit did not agree "phase three” of the EU’s sanctions strategy, which includes wide-ranging energy and financial sector measures. Senior German officials said that "as things stand” there are no grounds for wider retaliation, which would be activated only in the event of further "huge destabilisation” in Ukraine, notably in its southern and eastern regions. Instead, diplomats were on Wednesday examining how to add new Russian officials to the list of 21 currently targeted for asset freezes and visa bans for their role in the Crimea incursion. The EU deliberations came as the Kremlin moved to further cement its absorption of Crimea by seizing the headquarters of the Ukrainian navy in Sevastopol. It also emerged on Wednesday that regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have asked banks and fund managers for detailed breakdowns of their exposure to Russia.
Last week, Andriy Parubiy, Ukraine’s national security chief, said Ukraine would in coming days introduce a visa regime with Russia, cancelling prior arrangements that allowed Russian citizens to visit the country freely. The move could further inflame tensions between Kiev and Moscow. Mr Putin’s move to quickly annex the Crimean peninsula has provoked the most serious European security crisis since the cold war. It has also prompted calls in the US for Washington to expand energy exports to Europe in order to balance the dependence on Russia.
