European Climate Policies vs Energy Security Strategy of the Member States: Concerns and Contradictions
The first high-level conference organized by the Energy Group of the College of Europe, Natolin, took place on 26 January 2015 at the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe.
The discussion was moderated by Professor Christian EGENHOFER, Senior Fellow and Head of the Energy and Climate programme of the Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS). Two experts, Ms Marta BABICZ, Head of European and Regional Energy Policy Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland and Dr Emmet TUOHY, Research Fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security, Estonia, presented the position of respectively Poland and Estonia on the issue of European Climate Policy and the National Energy Security Strategy.
Both speakers outlined the points of view of these two countries, which have the reputation of being "polluters" and laggards of the European effort on decarbonization. The concept of the "Energy Union" and their different views on European and national energy security, were also discussed. Professor EGENHOFER emphasized that the numerous divergences between national energy policies of different Member States undermine the forging of the common European Energy Policy.
Ms BABICZ highlighted that the "Energy Union" project aims at decreasing the degree of dependency on gas deliveries, while enhancing the solidarity between Member States in regard to the gas supply in the framework of a more market based approach. It is not directed against any particular supplier of energy resources, but constitutes "a constructive answer for an unconstructive attitude of energy suppliers such as inter alia Algeria and Russia". As to the climate policy dimension: for Poland, energy security is a priority, and coal is indeed a major key to it, but the government does plan to modernize traditional coal fire plants in order to reduce their CO2 emissions by one third.
Dr TUOHY representing the Estonian point of view, stressed that Estonia has an exceptional energy mix which is based on the oil shale: easily extricable there, but with a big impact on the level of CO2 emission. However, he noticed that big progress is made in terms of efficiency, what inevitably would lead to a more environment-friendly outlook of the whole Estonian energy sector. Moreover, Estonia is a country which in regard to fuels is, at the moment, mostly based on biofuels (60%). He also underlined the importance of tightening the cooperation, insufficient at the moment, between Lithuania and Latvia in regard to improving their energy security.
This was a student activity organized by the members of the CoE Energy Group at the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe.