Policy brief 32, June 2014, Author: Cristian Ghinea. Weaknesses in the EU’s energy policy have become more evident since the Russia-Ukraine crisis. That is why in March this year, the European Council called for a comprehensive plan to reduce EU’s energy dependence. The European Commission responded with a communication on Energy Security, advocating closer cooperation between the EU and its neighbours and partners within the Energy Community, notably Ukraine and Moldova.
The CRPE report “Integrating Ukraine and Moldova in EU’s energy security plans” looks at how the EU could take concrete steps towards transforming the assumed political objectives into concrete policies.
Among the fitting action frameworks Cristian Ghinea lists including the two countries in the Connecting Europe Facility, providing more financing and prioritization to projects exploring the Black Sea potential and building interconnection with Moldova, putting additional “flesh” on the EU competition investigation against Gazprom (render EC decisions applicable also to Gazprom practices in Moldova and Ukraine).
This Commentary is published in the framework of the “EU-Moldova Think Tank Dialogue”, a project financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania through its Official Development Assistance Programme, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Bratislava Regional Centre.