By Anne-France White - 11th January 2007
Andris Piebalgs has asked Russia to be “transparent and reliable” in its oil deliveries after disruptions due to a dispute with Belarus.
The row between Moscow and Minsk, which has now been resolved, disrupted oil deliveries to Poland and Germany for three days.
The EU’s energy commissioner said lessons should be learned from the incident.
“We ask from both producer countries and transit countries to be really reliable,” he said. "We call for transparent and reliable behaviour in the future."
The incident has prompted renewed concerns about Europe’s energy dependency on Russia, which supplies a quarter of its oil and over two-fifths of its natural gas.
The dispute follows a similar incident last winter between Russia and Ukraine which disrupted gas deliveries to the EU.
Speaking after a meeting of the EU’s oil supply group, Piebalgs insisted that supply must not be disrupted in future.
"We are paying for these energy resources and we are never late in our payment. We have a right and this should be understood by all countries, that you never disrupt supply," he said.
Claude Mandil, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said it was “very serious” for the flow of oil to have stopped because of a dispute outside the EU.
“There is a strong need now to restore the confidence and credibility of this sort of supply, which has been dented,” he said.
Germany’s secretary of state for economy Joachim Wuermeling insisted that there must be clear rules for the international trade in oil.
“The impression has been given that the EU is a big giant consuming a lot but not defending itself,” he said.
“But we have to make it clear that we at the EU are not only a major trading partner but also donors in many cases in Belarus and Russia, and a certain amount of consideration is due to us.”
Arguing that the dependency between the EU and Russia is mutual, Wuermeling said the EU needs to bring its full political weight to bear on energy matters.
He added that the German EU presidency will “make sure a common EU energy policy is addressed in the next six months”.
On 10 January, the commission tabled sweeping proposals for an EU-wide energy policy aiming to increase the use of renewables, diversify energy sources and decrease the EU’s dependence on energy imports.
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