Russian energy concerns dominate EU summit

Energy security and access to Russia’s vast gas and oilfields will dominate talks at Friday’s informal meeting of EU leaders in Lahti, Finland.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is the guest of honour at the meeting, and he is expected to come under increasing pressure for reassurances over the security of the EU’s energy supply.

Russia supplies a quarter of the EU’s energy, and there are concerns that Moscow could use its powerful position to hold European capitals to ransom, as it did with Ukraine at the start of the year.

But the thorniest issue remains access to Russia’s energy market for EU companies – an area where Putin has shown little sign of listening to anything that European leaders have to say.

Brussels wants free access for all EU companies to the Russian oil and gas fields, and believes that such a move should be welcomed by Moscow as providing much-needed investment – especially in under-funded regions such as Siberia.

But Putin remains insistent that Gazprom, the monopoly energy group, has the money and the expertise to go it alone – as recently evidenced by the decision to give it the exclusive exploitation rights to the Siberian gas reserves at Shtokman.

French company Total initially won the rights to exploit part of the Shtokman field, but had its licence revoked by Moscow – a move that angered EU officials who remain largely powerless to respond.

Meanwhile, green groups will be campaigning in Lahti for EU leaders to turn their attention away from heavily polluting fossil fuels and to focus on renewables as the best means of securing Europe’s energy supply.

“It is hard to understand why European leaders are still concentrating on prolonging our dependence on hazardous fuels, while renewable energy, the clean and secure alternative, is here and ready,” said Greenpeace energy campaigner Frauke Thies.

“Its potential to supply half of Europe’s energy needs is being ignored to the detriment of European citizens who will suffer the consequences.”

And human rights campaigners will also be calling on the leaders to take Putin to task over Russia’s “onslaught on freedom of expression and association” following the decision to clamp down on outspoken NGOs.

“Energy issues are important but Europe will be doing no one a favour, least of all ordinary Russians, if this is allowed to override all others. It is crucial that the EU does not limit its protest to words only,” said Dick Oosting of Amnesty International’s EU office.

Europe’s failure to act quickly to halt the humanitarian disaster in the Sudanese region of Darfur will also be highlighted by protestors in Lahti.

A petition signed by 120 genocide survivors, to be presented to the leaders in Finland, will call on the EU to do more than simply follow the UN attempts to broker a deal and to impose sanctions on the Sudanese authorities.

In what is likely to be an extremely busy day for EU leaders, talks will also focus on ways of boosting European innovation – increasingly seen as the miracle cure to the EU’s ailing economic growth -  and on the impact of globalisation on the EU’s social systems.

• Previous article
• Next article