<TITLE: 5th Symposium of Russian and East European Studies: Workshop on EU, Russia and the Politics of Northern Energy Resources
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: Russian studies
EVENT TYPE: conference presentation
FILE ID: CPRE07A
NOTES: continuation of and continued in CDIS070, session also includes presentations CPRE07B-C

RECORDING DURATION: 15 min 44 sec

RECORDING DATE: 17.3.2005

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 15

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 1

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Russian; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50>


<S2> erm well the title of my presentation is energy dialogue and the future of russia democracy regionalism and economic liberalisation but i think i'll concentrate er on er more or less on the conceptual side of erm whole er the whole text i'm i'm actually in the process of writing at the moment er and discuss several important erm theoretical and methodological issues which i think are important not only for the project we're engaged at but also for the general understanding of er EU-russia energy dialogue er let me start by saying that when i was thinking initially about my er position within this project i think i i took the position of sort of naive modernisation theorist erm er i more or less proceeded from the assumption that erm er of course very widely known that er erm economic political er and cultural changes happen together usually and er they basically need each other in order to happen so i- if you want er <COUGH> er democratisation to happen in a certain country er you also need to develop a market economy er to liberalise er economic er developments in this country er or vice versa a market economy functions best er in the conditions of er under conditions of democracy so you can't er really introduce erm er market economy without democratisation er that was er my er sort of natural initial naive er assumption but then when i started to think and and and and work er with empirical material on russia-EU energy dialogue i thought that probably er this this assumption doesn't hold entirely and at least er it's not good to to to start from this assum- assumption to- so it's er probably not good to assume in advance that a democratic russia for example will necessarily be a more reliable more stable supplier of energy for the european union erm and that er it's more complicated than that er so basically what i'm going to offer is if you want a light version of this modernisation theory approach with all the caveats that had to that has to have to be er introduced er in the process er in the di- in the discussion er basically my question is erm er russia has a certain economic role to play as regards energy in europe and of course economic er you could put it er in quotation marks because er everything is related of course and there are no pure economic er issues in this world but still russia er basically er needs or the european union needs russia er as a as an energy supplier er the role of russia is to provide the EU with a reliable stable energy supplies and er it's er of course preferable that these energy supplies also be er safe first of all environmentally er so that energy which is supplies- supplied to the european union is supplied in a way which is environmentally safe for example wehe- when we use tankers er er er tanker fleet in the baltics that the oil doesn't spill over into into the sea or that the pipelines don't leak er or that er if we if we are talking about electricity supplies then er er no more chernobyl-type reactors are built and so on er so there is an economic role but er does this role depend on political again quote unquote er conditions er or maybe cultural conditions er is there any econom- er political or maybe cultural prerequisites for russia playing this very important er role for the er european union and my answer is yes but er i wouldn't i i would from the very beginning warn against erm various kinds of oversimplifications i wouldn't argue very much in in this tradition of a maybe er george W bush or other similar er politicians and erm and public figures that russia has to be democratic in any specific way in order to be a supplier of energy for the EU er first of all even a democratic russia er even a democratic russia can under certain conditions be not as reliable er as a supplier for the EU er as the EU probably wanted it to be er and there is a simple argument to confim- to confirm this point if the US were a major supplier of energy to the european union er would it be a really reliable supplier of oil at any con- er under any conditions er of course not and er the US is er by most standards a democratic country at least if you say that the e- e- the e- the US is not a democracy then russia will never be at least in the foreseeable future so basically erm there's no particular vision of democracy that could er could be provided in this sense that russia has to be democratic in a certain particular way but at the same time erm er i think there i- there is a link and the the the crucial question here is er what we mean by reliability or stability of supplies er more or less what is meant on the europe- on the european union side what is meant in brussels when they speak about reliable energy supplies and russia as a partner in this context is that russia supplies oil and gas and maybe electricity which is less crucial issue on the conditions of the european union er russia supplies as much oil and gas as the european union wants and er under the conditions that the european un- union wants er it er to happen er at the same time er we should point out of course that er the whole thing is happening in unde- under the conditions of scarcity er oil and gas are limited the the supplies the the resources the reserves of oil and gas are limited and exhaustible of course er but also er scarcity is further exacerbated if you want erm by the fact that er russia u- under under the current conditions at least can't significantly increase production and export at least in the near future er reasons for that are mostly known they are lack of erm easily accessible new stocks er transport bottne- bottlenecks er er and so on er besides of course there is the fact that there are alternative buyers and er according to some authors russia has already overcommitted itself as regards energy supplies to various parts of the world there is japan and china who are competing between themselves er for russian oil first of all there is the US which is also interested in er the russian supplies so this also increases the situation of er scarcity and er this situation of scarcity leads to the to the fact that russia has a certain space for action certain freedom for action erm and this is where politics enters actually this is where russia can basically determine er no- no- no- no- not only whe- where russia can set certain conditions for for its supplies to the european union and i think the two most important er factors two most important trends in the russian overall political development erm er no let me put it this way the ru- russian overall political development in this in the recent years erm under putin and maybe even before that at least since since the kosovo erm er crisis erm er the overall political development in russia has at least two important consequences for energy dialogue er and two er important political er projects which er affect energy dialogue as such and this is er the first one is that the russian state is trying er at least from er maybe last year mhm even earlier than that is trying to establish strategic control over oil and gas industry the russian government is trying to erm er to establish more or less state-ownership or state-control over major producers in order to er make er currency flows er resource flows more controllable more reliable in terms of er russian domestic developments and the second er consequence of the overall political development are various geopolitical projects which er russia now engage er engages in and erm er which affect er the situation with er the stability of energy supplies er , it's erm it becomes increasingly clear for example that erm mhm that russia the russian government er , mostly er has been successful in its er reforms and in its er in its economic policy er where it had to do with the more nationalist er statist er approach to the economy er the ideas to liberalise er energy sector to (xx) gasprom for example have been more or less abandoned and as er president putin said er er at the meeting with the german chancellor gerhard schroeder in 2004 we intent to preserve state-control over the gas-pipeline system and we will not divide gasprom er one may also quote russia-EU agreement on WTO entry which doesn't envisage any far-reaching reforms in the energy sector basically what russia agreed to was the s- er gradual raise of gas prices but erm the gasprom's energy monopoly remains intact er and of course the yukos affair the yukos affair of course one can go in great le- length discussing why was it er er what actually happened er what were the major driving forces motives and so on but one thing is clear er at least one major er rationale behind the whole affair was of course establishing strategic control over a major er oil and gas producer and er er despite all the talks about the importance of foreign direct investment russian government er actually did er er basically er re-nationalise er the the company for for a moment and er that's er er that i think has to do with this idea of strategic control over the important er important resources er financial and of course er er energy resources the second factor ge- the geopolitical factor has to do with the the with the situation where we basically see the the the the the the the emergence or re-emergence of erm an alternative european project there is a well-known european union europe er basically er i- it's it's common in the west of europe to associate europe with the EU but er russia increasingly disagrees with that russia seems to be building its own europe and trying to re-establish its in- its influence in the CIS states and energy is important as a tool in this in this process just two recent examples which is in the use at the at the moment basically the situation with georgia where er of course the russian military bases were er the the the parliament demanded to to withdraw the russian military bases and er the reaction in the duma was that okay let's cut energy supplies to georgia er that's the first reaction er the second is the situation with moldova er especially the the er detention of valery pasad erm the er adviser to anatoly chubais i've also heard people saying okay well now unified energy systems may cut energy supplies to moldova so whenever it comes to er to any political difficulty any political conflict within the former mhm soviet space er russia immediately raises this issue of energy supplies so energy can be a erm an important source what is important er on the other hand is that this space for action this freedom for action for russia is limited and it's limited first of all structurally the EU is russia's mado- major trading partner and it has still has some influence despite the fact that it also depends on the supplies from russia of course there is some important influence on russia but also and it's it's i think it's even more important and i want to stress this point erm maybe as a conclusion to my presentation er this space this freedom is limited temporarily again oil and gas are exhaustible resources and there is a there is a good chance that in the nearest future there will be new technologies which m- which may gradually or maybe just just suddenly replace oil and gas as the major especially oil as the major source of energy and i think basically my main criticism my main problem with er the situation as it is with with the politics of both russia and the EU er is that we're basically wasting time er discussing things like market shares er security of supplies of existing resources which are basically exhaustible and er very limited er in terms of long-term planning er but we don't talk enough about new technologies about cooperation in the field of erm i don't know renew- renewable energy sources or any other alternatives to oil and gas much less emphasis is put on these projects they exist of course there is a technology centre there is there are there are other projects but much less emphasis is put especially on the russian side on that but also on on on the environmental side of it i think and er erm , why we are wasting time i think the main reason is that especially on the russian side but maybe also on the EU side it's dif- more difficult for me to argue er about the EU side er the whole system this decision-making system is tuned to short-term planning this is one of the er huge problems with the russian political system right now it reacts to short-term challege- challenges but er fails to take into account the long-term trends and i think this is where one of the major problems for the years to come er lies and where this problem has to be addressed if we want the energy dialogue to develop as a forward-looking approach and not only as a some kind of safety-cushion which er should er er soften the the impact of er possible energy crises on the european union thank you </S2>
