Commission stands by ‘Gazprom clause’

A reciprocity clause in trade and investment is necessary to prevent a massive sell-out of strategic EU energy assets to foreign companies such as Russia’s Gazprom, a senior Commission official insisted at a debate on energy liberalisation this week.

The conference, organised on 16 April by the European Movement with the media support of EURACTIV, heard Marie-Christine Jalabert, deputy head of unit for electricity and gas at the Commission’s energy directorate, defend the EU executive’s approach to reciprocity in energy trade.

“We have one goal: to prevent a possible non-EU company from putting the assets on the market,” Jalabert told the conference. “If a company wants to buy shares in a transmission system operator on the stock market, they have to prove to the regulator that their government has the same kind of governance for requests from our own countries.”

Jalabert acknowledged, however, that the proposed clause is controversial among EU countries that have sealed bilateral deals with Russia in an apparent rush to secure their long-term gas supplies. “A lot of member states are not yet in favour; the position is not clear within the Council. Germany is not in favour, Austria neither, so it’s still open for debate in the Council.”

Paul Rübig, an Austrian MEP from the centre-right EPP-ED group, the largest in the European Parliament, said he was “not a big friend” of the reciprocity clause. He argued the EU should instead “concentrate on making its internal market work” as the size of the EU market, with 500 million consumers, gives it sufficient clout in its dealings with large suppliers like Russia.

Rübig also suggested that bilateral deals to secure Russian gas are in the interest of all parties. “A pipeline is like a marriage,” Rübig said in an audio interview with EURACTIV’s blog platform Blogactiv ahead of the debate. “If you have a pipeline, both sides will in the future of course be interested in having a good relationship.”

Poland has strongly criticised Germany for securing a deal on a planned Baltic Sea pipeline because the project will bypass Poland, which is heavily dependent on Russian gas.

EU energy ministers are expected to vote on the Commission’s proposals to further liberalise energy during a meeting on 6 June but there are deep uncertainties as to whether an overall agreement on the package can be reached (EURACTIV 17/04/08).

A source close to the EPP-ED group told EURACTIV that a majority was starting to emerge in Parliament to delay full liberalisation of the gas market due to the geopolitical sensitivity of the matter. “Everybody is conscious that a middle way needs to be found on gas,” the source said.

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