Current Affairs Vondra: EU needs better contingency planning for next energy crisis
Europe's gas crisis has dominated the first week of the Czech EU Presidency –Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek travelled to Ukraine on Friday to help negotiate an end to Ukraine’s dispute with Russia. The security of Europe's energy supplies is one of the Czech presidency's three priorities, and gas dominated talks by EU foreign ministers in Prague. In fact the Czech Republic’s deputy prime minister says Europe must be better prepared to deal with a similar crisis in the future.
Alexandr Vondra, photo: CTK
Tens of thousands of people – most of them in Central and Eastern Europe
– have been left shivering from Russia and Ukraine's dispute over gas
supplies; the Czech Republic itself was completely cut off from Russian gas
this week, while Slovakia declared a state of emergency, and even recruited
the help of neighbouring Poland, which has been bringing in natural gas on
lorries. Speaking after a day of meetings with EU foreign ministers in
Prague, deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra told reporters this was a
fine example of Europeans helping each other out in times of crisis, but
said the EU must be better prepared if the taps are suddenly turned off
again in the future.
“Unfortunately we are not very well prepared for that. So we need to elaborate the mechanism how we would have the contingency planning for situations like this, before we would have a better infrastructure inside the EU to fix those troubles.”
Many in Europe would like to see the sort of solidarity shown by Poland to Slovakia enshrined in a more formal framework – indeed one of the clauses of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty emphasises the need for solidarity in the field of energy. Alexandr Vondra again.
Photo: CTK
“Well, there are two ways of solidarity. There’s solidarity as a
political principle, and it should be a guiding principle for all EU
members in times of crisis, with or without the Lisbon Treaty, and that’s
the situation where we are right now. Certainly, the Lisbon Treaty, once it
enters into force, has some means of further enhancing of that cooperation
including in the area of energy. So if you want to have a sentence on
whether the Lisbon Treaty can contribute to better cooperation in that
particular field – I can tell you Yes.”
The Czech Republic, of course, hasn’t ratified the Lisbon Treaty yet so
it’s something of a moot point. But it's not just contingency plans for
future emergencies – the Czech EU Presidency wants long-term solutions
for Europe's energy security needs, something laid down in its priorities
for the next six months. A statement released after Thursday's informal
talks said the EU would speed up work on a number of initiatives, including
linking up more gas pipelines within Europe.
