EU May Take Desperate Measures To Ensure Energy Security

Oft forgotten and on the periphery of the European Union, the Balkans plus Ukraine may have a plan to address the energy needs of the economic bloc. It’s coal-heavy, borderline uneconomic, and arguably counterproductive to respective national agendas, but it does aim to satisfy some particularly topical pan-European goals: greater interconnection and greater energy security, i.e. reduced dependence on Russia.

The Problems Foreign Powers Find in the Balkans

Russia, Turkey and the West all share one rival in the Balkans: political instability. Located at the confluence of three historic empires, the strip of land between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea has long been the focus of competition among global powers. Now it is just one arena in the standoff between Russia and the West. Yet, with both sides attempting to buy influence with investments and energy projects, and with Turkey struggling to keep pace, internal political challenges threaten to undermine outside efforts to develop and shape the region. As major powers use their financial and political clout to gain influence in the Balkans, weak local governments will continue to balance among competing nations. 

Protesters Unite Against Corruption in Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Beyond

by Lili Nikolova and Dr. Alexander Mirescu 

Dozens were arrested and injured during civil demonstrations against high electricity bills in Sophia, Bulgaria, February 2013. (Wikipedia)

Since 1989, popular demands and large-scale protests in Eastern Europe helped to successfully topple communist regimes, usually with support from long-standing anti-communist civil society stakeholders. Every Eastern European country has since made significant advances in creating and strengthening its democratic institutions. Many, such as Poland, Lithuania, and (most recently) Croatia, became members of the European Union and NATO. Those still struggling—Albania, Serbia, FYROM, and Moldova, for example—still see membership in the EU as the pinnacle of their democratic projects.

A Balkan map for the road to Damascus?

It is two years since the EU imposed an arms embargo and other sanctions 
on Syria “to achieve a change of policy by the Syrian leadership without 
further delay”. Since then, over 80,000 people have been killed, over a 
million have sought refuge in neighbouring countries and over four 
million are internally displaced. And in that time, the EU has issued well 
over 100 statements and applied 21 further sets of sanctions, without any 
visible impact. If the highest wisdom of a state is masterly inactivity, this is 
the opposite: impotent hyperactivity. 

Indeed, everyone’s policy towards Syria has failed: 
the West has not succeeded in replacing the 
Assad regime with a liberal, secular democracy; 
Russian and Iranian support has not enabled 
Assad to reassert control; Saudi Arabia and other 
Gulf States have not managed to propel the 
Sunni majority into power at the expense of the 
Alawite minority. International leaders know that 
they need to do something different: that is the 
message of recent American and British attempts 
to re-launch a peace process in partnership with 
Russia. But there is not even the outline of an 
international consensus on what to do.

Croatian Government Considers Expansion of Russian Energy Companies

(Source: RIA Novosti)

Last month, the Croatian government signed up to Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline project; it agreed to re-start importing certain gas volumes from Gazprom through existing pipelines from 2013 onward; it welcomed Gazprom’s offers to build jointly-owned power plants in Croatia; heard an unexpected proposal for a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) project in the country; and approved GazpromNeft’s participation in upcoming tenders for oil and gas exploration sites and fuel retailing stations on Croatia’s territory. Gazprom’s top managers Aleksei Miller and Aleksandr Medvedev, as well as GazpromNeft CEO Aleksandr Dyukov took part in the January 17 meeting with government officials in Zagreb to discuss these plans and proposals (see EDM, February 20).

Russia Opposes Changes to Balkan Borders

The Russian Foreign Minister has dimissed the Albanian Prime Minister's call for an eventual unification of all Albanians in one state, saying too much blood has been spilled in the region already.

Tanjug

Sergei Lavrov said that any redrawing of borders in Europe is unacceptable, and that fully refers to the situation in the Balkans, "where much blood has been shed.

Slovenia, Skopje Top Forbes' Business Ranking in Balkans

Forbes magazine has rated Slovenia and Skopje as the best countries in the Balkans in which to do business. Serbia is rated worst.

BIRN
 Skopje

Photo by: Julien Jorge

The US financial magazine in its annual listranks Slovenia in 23rd position out of 141 analyzed countries worldwide. Skopje is second in the Balkans, ranked in 37th place.

Montenegro is ranked 45th while Croatia is two places below in 47th place. Bulgaria takes 49th position and Romania is ranked in 60th place.

Greece, which is currently struggling with its debt crisis, takes 68th position. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are in 74th, 85th and 90th places respectively. The list does not include Kosovo.

ECFR: A stream of questions over the South Stream pipeline

 Dimitar Bechev,

As I am writing these lines Russian President Vladimir Putin is welding the first bit of the South Stream pipeline in the Black Sea coastal town of Anapa. The project’s goal is to bring Russian gas to over 38 million households in Southern Europe and the Balkans by late 2015 or early 2016, whilst bypassing Ukraine which was Moscow’s opponent in two gas crises in 2006 and 2009. Like North Stream, which was inaugurated recently, Putin is said to take a strong personal interest in the project,and considers it a personal legacy item. Otherwise, the funding is carried by energy giant Gazprom (50%) together with EU firms ENI (Italy, 20%), EDF (France, 15%) and Wintershall (a subsidiary of Germany’s BASF, another 15%).  This is reason enough to alert Russia-sceptics in Europe as well as across the Atlantic. Critics see the project as deepening Europe’s dependency on Russian gas supplies, probably the Kremlin’s most powerful weapon in dealing with the EU.  This comes at a time when the European Commission is carrying outproceedings against Gazprom over unfair business practices. (It is serious; the other day pundits in Brussels assured me that the Gazprom investigation might turn out to be 2012s equivalent of the landmark Microsoft case in the foregoing decade. Never underestimate the regulatory empire that is the EU!) Meanwhile, in Russia itself Rosneft seeks toreplace Gazprom as Vladimir Vladimirovich’s energy conglomerate of choice.

For or against visas for the Balkans?

Will the EU be bringing back the visa requirement for nationals of the western Balkans? On France and Germany’s initiative, six member states of the EU want tighter controls on migrants arriving from Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania.

Among these countries is Sweden, which has taken in more than 34,000 asylum seekers since the start of the year, including 5,276 Syrians. Most, though, are from the Balkans. The position of the centre-right government has divided the Swedish press.