The two-day European Summit on Energy Security has completed its work in Kyiv. Most of the work was done on the first day, when a forum of participants and crucial meetings and negotiations between the presidents of Ukraine and Azerbaijan took place.
As the initiator of the summit, Ukraine and its president generated its main ideas, which, in the event that they are implemented, will change the face of Europe and its world status, making this continent independent and secure in the sphere of energy.
“We are in fact starting to form an essentially new culture of transiting energy supply from the east to the west,” President Viktor Yushchenko said in his opening speech during the Energy Forum. “Joining the European energy system to the European one will strengthen the security of energy supply both in Ukraine and the EU,” the president assured, admitting that Kyiv views the Ukrainian oil and gas transporting system as an inseparable part of the European one. The Ukrainian leader is convinced that both the Energy Forum and the summit are “a wonderful place to discuss the following problem with academics, business people, and politicians: how to put in order our common energy space, what it can bring to each nation, while declaring respect for joint principles and common values of the organization of this space.”
Along with his appeal to unite around the common principle of forming an energy space, the president of Ukraine called upon all the participants to consider the fact that it is impossible to be guided exclusively by national approaches and national legal and business regulations. “The market, which has no common principles and joint responsibility, is extremely dependent,” Yushchenko underlined.
The work according to the new regulations that are creating a single energy space and energy security in Europe is just beginning and may last for years, if not decades. In the nearest future Ukraine can contribute to this cause with its own cornerstone: the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline, which has already been launched into operation. “The extension of the Odesa-Brody pipeline to Plock will bring sensible progress into resolving the problem of providing the countries of the European Union with Caspian oil,” declared Ukraine’s head of state, continuing insistently to promote this Ukrainian project, which is destined to become the core of Europe’s energy security and an axis around which the interests of many countries of the continent may unite in an open Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian energy transit association.
These interests entail the necessity to increase the transparency of energy supply to Europe. According to President Yushchenko, Ukraine is convinced of the need for a “full extension” of the oil pipeline so that the EU countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, and the Baltic countries) as well as Belarus will gain the “shortest access to Caspian oil.” This access should be the “most economical,” he said, reminding his listeners that this project already has three positive technical-economic foundations, and a fourth one is underway. The fourth one, as well as the previous three, Yushchenko insisted, proves that “this is one of the most efficient projects for supplying Caspian oil to the European Union.”
All these ambitious plans have to be based on strengthened cooperation between Ukraine and Azerbaijan in the energy sphere and other spheres. Recently, important steps were made in this direction. President Ilkham Aliev of Azerbaijan confirmed during the joint press conference with the Ukrainian president that there is a political agreement of all the potential participants of the open Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian energy transit association. “Today we can already talk about the creation of a new energy corridor that can link the Caspian and Baltic seas. This is a new element in regional cooperation: this project has a large format, and we have the political support of all the countries taking part in this corridor. All we have to do is coordinate the economic and technical details of our cooperation,” Aliev explained. He also noted that all that is left to do is to test this project in practice in order to “see the result.” Clearly, at issue here is the start in May of the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline in the reverse direction, as promised by the Ukrainian president.
Unfortunately, a certain loss of pace has been observed. It is more likely that there will be no reverse movement this month. Proof of this is Yushchenko’s statement that he will meet President Aliev in early July in order to discuss the question of supplying Azerbaijani oil to the EU countries. According to Aliev, the key question is the various pilot projects on filling the Odesa-Brody pipeline with Caspian oil.
In a nutshell, the Energy Summit in Kyiv proved that the “ball” in the issue of creating a secure European energy space is located in Ukraine’s court, and there should be no delays in passing it to its partners. Was this not why, on the first day of the summit, Yushchenko signed an edict establishing an interdepartmental working group that has one week to draft and present a plan for converting the Odesa-Brody pipeline to the planned direction in 2008?
