Energy security and energy sovereignty of Southeastern European - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Energy security and energy sovereignty of Southeastern European countries Prof. Vihren Bouzov, DSc v.bouzov@gmail.com

Overview • Energy Security and Energy Policy • Energy Security Perspectives for the Southeastern European Countries • Turkey as a New Energy Distribution Centre and Geopolitical Confrontation

Energy Security and Energy Policy • The political sovereignty decline of nation states is a key characteristic feature of the globalization era - a single country cannot guarantee its own security and seeks for coalitions or alliances. • Security can be defined as a process of support of a satisfactory control by the social subject (individuals, groups, organizations or society as a whole) over harmful effects of ‘the environment’. A security environment can be identified with the system of a subject’s social relationships. • For a state, this refers to its relationship with other participants in the international system. The content of the notion of security has become enlarged – it could not be limited to military aspects or the maintenance of legal order.

Energy Security and Energy Policy • There is no accepted definition of energy security. Each country strives for energy security: in the present-day we are faced up with an increasing demand for energy sources along with an intensive development of economy and trade exchange. • One research group of the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations defines this type of security as “access to energy at affordable prices”. It means that two conditions determine energy security or “reliable and affordable supply of energy”: finding sufficient energy resources to meet the basic needs of a country and ensuring their free transportation from the place of production to the place of consumption.

Energy Security and Energy Policy • The term “energy sovereignty” has different political interpretations, from a theoretical aspect it could be related to the freedom of a country to make autonomous decisions about its energy security. “Energy policy” became something different and separate from “foreign policy”, but both are aspects of “security policy”. There are many arguments in favor of the thesis that energy security can be achieved only in countries which have gained sovereignty over decisions in this area.

Energy Security and Energy Policy • The distribution of energy resources in the world is realized through a fierce and uncompromising competition. One can claim with a reason that the provision of energy in recent decades has been experiencing enormous difficulties - as a result of the jump in the population growth in developing countries, the uneven distribution of resources and the growing needs of industrialized countries. Different economic and political interests create difficulties in transporting energy to its consumers. Controversial interests distort the free market and bring force factors into it.

Energy Security and Perspectives • The energy security of all Balkan countries is linked to the context of the intensive conflicts in the Middle East and the Post-Soviet Space. The transport of Russian gas through Ukraine is diminishing and may be stopped in 2019, due to the West's instigation of a new phase in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Russia and Gazprom are looking for new gas transport routes, driven by the crisis demand in Eastern and Central European countries. The dominant perspective so far is to rely on the "Turkish Stream" and the transfer of Russian gas through Turkey.

Energy Security and Perspectives • The alternative is to import US liquefied gas, which however needs storage terminals and is much more expensive. One can conclude that here we have the classic situation of penetration of two superpowers in our region through alternative and mutually exclusive energy strategies. All attempts to diversify Russian gas dependence for the time are characterized by limited success - in 2019 limited quantities are expected in Bulgaria from Azerbaijan. But this opportunity cannot adequately meet the needs of the countries of our region. A condition for this is the construction of an interconnector on the Bulgarian-Greek border. The success of the Southern Gas Corridor is undermined by uncertainty about Azerbaijan's reserves and conflicting relations in the region around Iran.

Energy Security and Perspectives • Let us discuss some key assumptions about the prospects for energy security development for the countries of Southeastern Europe. The first one is that the political pressure from the United States and the western countries on our region will increase. It will become more and more direct and brutal. Trump will want to sell liquefied gas at any cost to all US-dominated countries. It is true that for more than 10 years “the gap between the EU and Russia has widened with regard to organizing principles in terms of energy cooperation and the management of interdependencies” [3].

Energy Security and Perspectives • This puts limits on the autonomous decision-making of EU members in our region. Under these conditions, it can be argued that a country that does not hold back and subdue this pressure will lose its energy sovereignty. This was the case of Bulgaria. Its current elite did not protect national interests and energy security under the severe geopolitical pressure by abandoning the “South Stream” project and the Belene Nuclear Power Plant.

Energy Security and Perspectives • The political confrontation that led to the suspension of the first project was international in nature and related to the U.S. and the EU pressure in favor of Ukraine's privileged position as a transit country for Russian gas and ultimately to push Russian projects beyond Europe's borders. It was clear that South Stream would make the Ukrainian gas transmission system superfluous. • This also applies to the geostrategic position of Ukraine. With the termination of this project, Bulgaria has contributed to the change of the geopolitical architecture of Southeastern Europe.

Energy Security and Perspectives • This was reflected in Turkey's transformation into an energy distribution center in the Balkans and in attempts to construct alliances of Southeast European countries in their desire to get involved in the distribution of Russian gas. Such steps have been made by Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia. • Bulgaria's attempts to play its game with the proposed energy hub "Balkan" near Varna had limited results of a propaganda action that was not supported either by Russia or by the EU- dominant countries elite. It was only positive that it was motivated by the accelerated completion of the interconnector system with Turkey. A positive perspective is the continuation of a Turkish Stream pipeline to Bulgaria.

Energy Security and Perspectives • The termination of the project to build a second nuclear power plant in Belene has been fully coordinated with the US Secretary of State since Obama's Hillary Clinton. The most serious argument of the project adversaries was that Bulgaria had low energy needs and would not need a second nuclear power station. However, the objective circumstance that the reactors in Kozloduy had a limited life and the latter was extended would soon leak. • As such, Bulgaria was approaching an energy crash. Turkey has also recently announced a project to build a nuclear power plant in Thrace. With independent energy diplomacy Turkey seized Bulgaria's lost function as a major gas distributor and exporter of nuclear power to the Balkan countries.

Turkey as a New Energy Distribution Centre and Geopolitical Confrontation • Secondly, it could be justified that only Turkey has won energy sovereignty among the countries of the Balkans. Other Balkan countries remain under pressure to ignore the opportunities that are most beneficial to their population. Romania has its own energy supply, but the infrastructure for production is sold out and it cannot be considered as possessing energy sovereignty. A dominant perspective is turning Turkey into a major energy and gas distribution center for the Balkans and Southeastern Europe.

Turkey as a New Energy Distribution Centre and Geopolitical Confrontation • It has a sufficiently developed pipeline network that, along with the Turkish Stream, will provide the opportunity to transport Russian and Azeri gas to the Balkan and EU countries. The country is a major distributor of Azeri and Iranian gas. Leaders from Balkan countries and the EU took part in the latest World Petroleum Congress in Turkey in the summer of 2017. The implementation of these projects will deprive Ukraine of its role and the geostrategic importance of its gas transmission network, which, due to political uncertainty, may be abandoned completely.