EU Heads of State Summit to Focus on Natural Gas
The European Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the European Union in Brussels on the 22nd of May will be heavily focused on natural gas developments, pointing out the importance of the energy commodity for the growth and development of the Continent.
More specifically, three themes will be intensely discussed: gas diversification, natural gas security of supply, and pricing, all of which frequently occupy the agenda of European governments and corporations alike.
The EU Commission has already made known that the Union by 2035 will need more than 80 percent of its total energy needs to be imported from abroad, while at the same time the recession in many countries has resulted in a considerable decrease in investments.
EU officials take a neutral stance towards nuclear energy, which is used by 14 member states, although Germany, Austria and Italy are seriously thinking of shutting down their nuclear power plants, thus increasing the need for natural gas power infrastructure, with gas being the only reliable alternative for steady production of clean and almost zero emissions electricity.
According to 2011 stats, 24 percent of the EU's energy consumption derives from natural gas while oil accounts for 35 percent, nuclear energy 14 percent, renewable energy for 10 percent and fossil fuel for 17 percent. The main issue as described in numerous reports by the Directorate-General for Energy is how to swiftly increase both gas and renewables at the expense of oil and fossil fuel, under the assumption that nuclear energy is going to be decreased in usage as well. This task is a gigantic in terms of investments needed and also in terms of technocratic and even geopolitical barriers.
As a result, Brussels will also put forward in the summit the agenda of shale gas potential reserves in Europe and how the US example could or could not be possible in member states as well. Furthermore, the integration of the market which plainly involves the gradual establishment of a common legal framework for natural gas is also going to be discussed, since any energy policy such as the one described above cannot be implemented by one state alone.
Another topic is the increase in consumption of LNG and the plans of the EU to fully develop its infrastructure by creating around 30 more terminals over the coming generation. The main aim is to diversify imports by being able to exploit new sources of gas entering the market from Western and Eastern Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and prospective Latin American and US fields, in the latter case, from shale gas.
Lastly, the summit will also discuss the establishment of the Southern Corridor where the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Nabucco West are competing. It can be safely estimated that the summit will not take the side of any pipeline project and keep a neutral stance, since member states have already started backing individual pipelines and a consensus for a particular candidate will not be an easy one.