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EU policy on Russian natural gas: compromise between ideal and reality
2016-12-14567
October 26 is an important moment for the long-standing dispute between the EU and Gazprom. According to the announcement of the two sides' talks, Gazprom will reach a final agreement with the EU authorities to end the five-year anti-monopoly investigation. Gazprom will make concessions and submit specific commitments according to the requirements of the EU authorities, so as to avoid the EU's huge anti-monopoly penalties. On the 28th of the following two days, the European Commission agreed to raise the upper limit for Russian gas to use Germany's opal pipeline filter to deliver natural gas: according to the new regulations, Russian gas can use the opal pipeline to increase its gas transmission capacity from 50% to 80% - 90%.
On October 26, Alexander Medvedev, vice president of Gazprom, and Anatoly yanovsky, Deputy Minister of energy of Russia, held talks with Margrethe vestager, director of the EU Competition Commission. After the meeting, Medvedev said: "we are submitting the final commitment proposal, which will be sent to the European Commission soon", he also said that the talks are "constructive", and "both sides expressed their hope to find mutually acceptable decisions". But the EU is not so optimistic. Vestager stressed that "we have made progress, but there are still many problems to be solved", "all options are still under discussion at this stage", "our goal is to achieve the best results for European families and industries". Nevertheless, this meeting is the beginning of the settlement of the anti monopoly case, so it still has milestone significance
Two days later, another European Commission resolution on Russian gas gave the outside world more reason to believe that the two sides would peacefully resolve disputes in the field of natural gas. On October 28, the European Commission and the bnetza Federal Network Agency for electricity, gas, telecommunications, posts and railway decided to increase the current upper limit of Russian gas transportation through Germany's opal pipeline, an extension of the North Stream gas pipeline filter through the Baltic Sea in Germany. Before that, Gazprom was only allowed to use 50% of the transportation capacity of the pipeline. Under the new rules, Gazprom was allowed to bid for the remaining 30% - 40% of the pipeline transportation capacity, and the remaining 10% - 20% was left to other competitors. In fact, apart from Russian gas, no other natural gas supplier uses opal pipeline, and half of its gas transmission capacity is basically idle, while Russian gas has always required to obtain all the transportation capacity of opal pipeline, so as to improve the transportation capacity of Beixi pipeline
As a result, the decision of the European Commission was first seen as a compromise with Russia. "This decision is not just because of political reasons, but also because we want to maintain friendly relations with Russia and the gas," EU officials said. According to reports, this is a decision made according to the requirements of the German side. At the same time, the EU is seen as a betrayal of Ukraine. With the increase of gas transmission through opal pipeline, Russia will reduce the natural gas flow through Ukraine. Due to the possible severe cold this winter and the shortage of underground gas storage in Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly warned that there is a risk of gas supply across Ukraine. In addition, media reports say that the European Commission's action on Opal pipeline is part of the deal with Gazprom. In response, Gazprom will be more flexible in terms of price, while abandoning the prohibition on resale of natural gas in contracts with European customers
But the European Commission's action against Russia's gas has not been unanimously welcomed by EU Member States. In terms of anti monopoly cases, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Latvia, which claim to suffer unfair prices, have been waiting for the EU's ruling. There is no doubt that it is difficult for them to agree to make concessions to Russia and gas. Compared with the previous EU antitrust Commission dealing with the antitrust cases of American giants such as apple and Google, vestage's compromise approach to Russia and gas seems surprisingly moderate. Pgnig, Poland's national oil and gas company, said it would sue the European Commission if it did not fine Gazprom. "These decisions pose a real threat to the stability of gas supply in central and Eastern Europe," pgnig stressed in its official report. In addition, pgnig also objected to the decision on Opal pipeline, which was recently rejected by Polish regulators
From the perspective of the supply of natural gas market in the EU, with the reduction of natural gas production in Europe, the demand for ensuring the safety of natural gas and the diversification of imports is becoming higher and higher, and the position is more firm. However, from the perspective of market fundamentals and major political risks, if the EU wants to maintain a favorable strategic position, it must pay attention to the internal and external factors affecting the choice of EU natural gas policy. The internal factors are the prospects for EU to further strengthen the market integration of natural gas filtration equipment, especially the investment to connect the northwest European natural gas market with the infrastructure in the East and South Europe, which has a strong resource guarantee capability; the external factors include the availability of pipeline natural gas resources available for selection and the growth potential of imported LNG. The ultimate goal is to improve the EU's natural gas market The competitiveness of the gas market
Within the EU, although LNG import is a rational choice, some EU Member States prefer to choose their own domestic policies rather than form a united front of the whole EU. Russian gas is just using
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