Memorandum of the 5th Section of International Security Forum - "ENERGY SECURITY BETWEEN THE EU-UKRAINE-RUSSIA: FROM CRISIS TO TRUST GAINING MEASURES", April 16, 2010, Lviv, Ukraine

1. Working material for the International Security Forum prepared by the
Globalization Centre “Strategy XXI” under the project “Energy resources
and their delivery infrastructure: the potential for inappropriate operation
in Europe” supported by the NATO Liaison Office in Ukraine. Project
Manager – Mykhailo Gonchar
ENERGY SECURITY BETWEEN THE EU-UKRAINE-RUSSIA: FROM CRISIS TO
TRUST GAINING MEASURES
1. Consequences of the European gas crises in 2006 and 2009 can be compared to the
impacts of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as military and
political Middle East conflicts during the Cold War. Therefore, the continent needs to
develop a trust measure system similar to the military one of the 1970s and ‘80s.
2. A range of the Russian Federation’s (RF) official documents (“The National Security
Strategy of the Russian Federation Until 2020”, “The Military Doctrine of the Russian
Federation”, “The Energy Security Strategy of the Russian Federation Until 2030”) contain
ambiguous provisions and do not facilitate the strengthening of trust towards Russia as an
anticipated partner and contributor towards European economy security.
3. RF official documents,“The National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation
until 2020” and “The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation”, which have been recently
approved, consider NATO expansion as a threat and do not realize that the Alliance performs
global functions. Based on this, they define the mitigation task as a “neutralization of
possible military hazards and military threats by political, diplomatic and other non-military
tools”. This issue increases the chances of the RF’s use of energy resources and infrastructure
potential as non-military tools should intensify relations with certain countries, as well as
with the Alliance as a whole.
4. Hitherto, the EU has not provided an official and definite estimate of the 2009 gas
crisis. It has not been officially settled whether Russia stopped the gas supply to the EU or if
it was Ukraine that stopped the transit of gas. None of the crises, neither in 2006 nor in 2009,
were prevented by political or legal means. The crises were regulated politically. Legal
mechanisms were either not involved or played a minor role. The resulting regulations were
not complex and can be considered as a kind of ad hoc regulations.
5. End consumers, the national authorities of consumer states and the EC did not have
and do not have the full informational picture of the crisis’ course, based on data for
informational control, since an integrated system of objective control over the movement of
gas flow simply does not exist. The Informational expanse, in terms of the lack of objective
information, is filled with substitutes and disinformation.
6. The large scale and investment intensive projects for the diversification of gas export
initiated by Russia, against the tendency towards a decrease in gas import from the East, can

2. create a significant surplus of pipeline capacities. With the absence of an integrated gas
infrastructure under the EU, this creates a threat towards the manipulation of gas export
volumes, directions and price in order to minimize income as well as put pressure on EU and
NATO states by threatening them with limited/suspended supplies, particularly in
combination with a purposeful info-psychological campaign.
7. The Russia-EC memorandum on early warning is bilateral and is not legally binding,
as the application of early warning measures and regulation completely depends on the will
and mutual agreement of two sides. Such a mechanism is unlikely to prevent or regulate
trilateral gas crises similar to ones which took place in 2006 and 2009. EU-Russia energy
security cannot be ensured based on the interests of a transit country. Assessments and
actions should be taken in compliance with transparency, proportionality and non-
discrimination principles.
8. An effective mechanism for strengthening energy security within the European
continent can be the initiation and implementation of the Energy Transparency Regime
(ETR) which should include the whole technological chain – from the extraction to the
consumption of energy. The Regime’s variety of sectors has to include energy flows – gas
(ETR-gas), oil (ETR-oil), and electricity (ETR-electricity). Transparency of the chain
“Extraction – Transmission – Consumption” should establish a trust regime, and mutual
provision of access to the telemetry parameters of energy flows would facilitate increased
transparency.
9. NATO and the EC have to increase cooperation in energy security since this range of
problems is one of the most important components of security for the Alliance’s European
members and the EU. One needs to comprehend energy security not only through
commercial arguments of economic entities, but also through the use of energy resources and
infrastructure as political impact tools which are preferably used by authoritative states to
reach their strategic non-economic goals.
In order to minimize the ineffective search for causes and agents responsible for crisis in the
grid energy supply systems, in our opinion, it is necessary to introduce not only symmetric
and non-discriminatory contractual and regulatory assurance of transparency, but also an
objective instrumental monitoring of the physical parameters of energy flows in a trilateral
format according to the functioning of the Upstream – Midstream – Downstream of the
energy sector.