Declaration of the Budapest V4+ Energy Security Summit

The Czech Republic, the Republic of Hungary, the Slovak Republic and the Republic of Poland, as Member States of the Visegrad Group as well as the Republic of Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Bulgaria, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Slovenia and Romania have made a joint declaration.

The most important feature of the document for the first sight is the declaration to harmonize contingency planning and rationing if a new natural gas crisis emerges. The footnotes are interesting bits of the document. Austria does not consider nuclear energy as a safe and sustainable energy source and is hence not in a position to support the paragraph relating to nuclear energy. Despite the EU-conform enthusiasm for the Nabucco pipeline, the Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary,Serbia andSlovenia also state that they are involved in the South Stream project which would enable them access to sources via an alternative route.

Here is the declaration (consolidated text with preamble here):

• Express their support to strengthen cooperation in further integrating their gas networks and diversifying routes and sources of supplies:

- By promoting the North-South interconnections through all V4 countries, between the planned Croatian and Polish Liquefied Natural Gas terminals and also

- By further promoting and implementing the Nabucco and the NETS projects,

- By supporting the Constanta LNG terminal and other LNG and CNG projects in the wider Black Sea Region,

• Expect urgent political agreement with the European Parliament as regards the regulation on security of gas supplies which should ensure in particular the effective EU reaction in cases where the EU gas market is no longer able to respond to the gas supply disruption autonomously. Due to this the European Commission should coordinate measures predefined in national and EU emergency plans in order to restore the functioning of the internal gas market,
• Strongly favour that immediate acknowledgement of common regional interests should be made in the process of the establishment of the Second Action Plan for EU Energy Policy (2010-2014), inter alia on the architecture and the budget of the new EU Energy Security and Infrastructure Instrument,
• Are determined to strengthen the region's energy security with a strong and uniform demand to secure the EU cohesion policy funding for common energy projects within the EU as well as to continue their concerted efforts to support the energy projects in the Energy Community countries within the framework of the EU external policy financial instruments. The proposals to this effect will be prepared by the established working groups.
• Declare their willingness to provide support and joint efforts for a higher allocation of EU financial resources notably from the EU cohesion policy to all infrastructure projects aimed at increasing the energy security of the region.
• Encourage closer cooperation of the energy companies of the region operating critical elements of the energy value chain to enhance synergies and energy supply security.
• Intend to hold regular high level meetings in order to further discuss the ways of improving the energy security of their countries and the EU as well as to adopt the necessary measures which may help mitigate any possible disruption of supply in the future.
• Have agreed to set up "ad hoc" working groups at expert level on different projects such as the North-South interconnections and other regional interconnectors, oil supply in the region, etc. The main task of the working groups should be to prepare concrete proposals for implementation and to better coordinate their cooperation in these fields, notably in the EU decision making process.

Budapest, February 24, 2010

Visegrad Summit and Danube Summit in Budapest

Energy security is the main topic of the next Visegrad Summit being held in Budapest next week - announced Péter Balázs, Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister. On February 24 the Visegrad Group and the prime ministers of Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia as well as officials of the European Commission and the incumbent Spanish Presidency of the European Council and US officials will attend a summit meeting to strengthen the energy security of the region.

The main topics for discussion will be oil and natural gas supply; the interconnection of energy systems; the development of the Nabucco gas pipeline project; natural gas storage; nuclear projects, as well as energy relations between the EU and Russia and between the EU and the US.

On February 25-26 the prime ministers and the foreign ministers of the 14 countries of the region will attend the Danube Summit to start negotiations considering the “Danube Strategy”. The event is organised by the European Commission.

Gas Relief to Serbia and Bosnia During the Eastern European Gas War

Due to the Russian-Ukrainian-European gas war Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia were the first serious victims, having not enough energy to heat residential areas. With some delay, Hungary (and Germany) offered some relief for the Serbian plea. Austria joined in later, demonstrating that Serbia is closer to Central Europe than Russia. Another good news is that according the Serbian president started to talk with the Croatian premier to improve the situation in Croatia, where are also limitations on energy use. The two countries have been fighting a bloody war against each other 15 years ago.

The current, Czech Presidency, the first real Central European one, tries to capture the mood and give some more space for Serbia’s politicians to redirect their countries alliance from Russia to the European Union. At last, European gas shipment arrived to Bosnia-Herzegovina, too. In Sarajevo people were without heating for -17C. It was reported that in Kragujevac, a Serbian industrial town, where people have just recently spend about a half of their yearly salaries to switch to gas heating in the promise of Russian gas from the Slavic allies, people were protesting and burning Russian flags.

There area a lot of geopolitics and economic interests at stake in the yearly Ukrainian-Russian gas wars. It seems that the 2009 one has served some EU and Central European geopolitical interests.