Europees energiebeleid en Turkije (en)

EU EXTERNAL ENERGY POLICY

The European Union is developing a common European energy policy which essentially aims at tackling climate change, limiting the EU's dependence on imported hydrocarbons and ensuring the supply of secure and affordable energy for consumers, while contributing to the competitiveness of its economy.

This will require a combination of internal and external policies. Climate change must be addressed globally. External policies will also have to address the EU's increasing dependence on energy imports from sometimes politically unstable regions and supplier countries.

In January 2007 the European Commission presented a comprehensive package including an action plan on European energy policy. The European Council in March adopted a major Action Plan for the period 2007-2009 based on the Commission's communication "An Energy Policy for Europeâ€. On the external scene the Commission is actively promoting an international energy policy that pursues Europe's interests.

THE ENERGY COMMUNITY TREATY

The EU and its South-East neighbours have established the Energy Community , as a structured framework for deepened relations in the energy field. The Treaty creating the Energy Community extends the EU energy market to its southern European neighbours within a common regulatory area with shared trade, transmission and environmental rules.

The Energy Community Treaty entered into force on 1 July 2006 and, for the time being, extends the relevant EU energy acquis to the Western Balkan countries. The treaty has improved energy security, created a regional energy market and underpinned investments. Ukraine, Norway and Moldova applied for membership to the Energy Community. Turkey is an observer to the Treaty.

TURKEY AND EU EXTERNAL ENERGY POLICY

Turkey depends on energy imports to an even bigger extent than the EU. Currently, Turkey imports about 70% of its total energy needs. About 25% of its electricity is generated from hydroelectric power plants. This, together with potential for geo-thermal, wind and solar energy, shows that renewable energy can be an important source of energy for Turkey. At the moment, the largest part of its energy (both gas and oil) comes from Russia, followed by Iran. Turkey is in close geographical proximity to countries possessing more than 70% of proven global gas and oil reserves.

Its geographical location makes Turkey an important potential corridor in particular for gas and oil from Central Asia and other neighbouring countries to the EU.

Turkey is already a major transit route for oil from Russia, and Central Asia, to global markets. However, most of it goes via tankers through the Bosphorus Straits which constitutes considerable strains on traffic, and also environmental risks. Since July 2006, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is operational, transporting Caspian oil from Azerbaijan to the terminal in Ceyhan from where it is shipped to world markets. The construction of the Samsun-Ceyhan oil by-pass route has started. The pipeline will reduce the increasing pressure of maritime oil transport through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles straights. It will also increase secure oil supplies for the EU and world markets.

Turkey has already taken major steps to bring its legal framework into line with the EU energy acquis, in particular as regards conditions for trade in electricity and gas. This is part of Turkey's pre-accession process to the EU. It includes technical interconnectivity of the Turkish grid with the EU's grid (currently prepared with the help of an EU financed project).

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey

TRANS EUROPEAN ENERGY NETWORKS (TEN-E) AND TURKEY

The Trans European Energy Networks are integral to the European Union's overall energy policy objectives. The European Union supports electricity and gas transmission infrastructure projects of European interest, mainly by financing feasibility studies. Most of the projects cross national borders or have an impact on several EU Member States. `Projects of European Interest' should be mature projects on priority axes with a cross-border component or with significant impact on cross-border transmission capacity.

Turkey lies on two of the priority axes of natural gas.

The first axis is the NG3 - gas pipelines from Caspian Sea and Middle East. This includes the two main infrastructures that will bring gas from Turkey to the EU. The first one, the so called "Nabucco" project runs from Turkey to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and ends up in Austria. The European Council, on 9th March 2007, identified it as one of the 4 energy infrastructures that will benefit from the nomination of a co-ordinator to facilitate implementation of the project. The second one is the Turkey-Greece-Italy interconnector drawing in the countries of South East Europe, which would in time bring the resources of the Caspian region, Iran and the Middle East to the enlarged EU market and the Balkans.

The second axis is the NG6 - East Mediterranean gas ring. Turkey is engaged in the South Europe Gas Ring Project, which aims at bringing natural gas from the Caspian Sea, Middle East, and Southern Mediterranean countries to Europe through Turkey and Greece. The first phase of the project, which connects Turkey and Greece, will be completed in 2007. Feasibility studies were financed by EU funds.

 Turkey is also engaged in the Arab natural gas pipeline project which is another project relevant to the TEN-E NG6 priority axis.

As for electricity, Turkey is preparing to connect to the priority axis EL4 Greece-Balkan countries UCTE system. Turkey is using EU financial assistance to establish interconnectivity. Turkey is also foreseen to be part of another priority axis - EL9 Mediterranean Electricity Ring - for which studies are ongoing.

EU FINANCIAL AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO THE TURKISH ENERGY SECTOR

Project "Encouraged"

The European Commission supported the project "Encouraged†(Optimisation of future 'energy corridors' between the EU and neighbouring countries) within the framework of the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP6). The project has the following objectives:

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  To assess the optimal energy interconnections and network infrastructure for electricity, gas and hydrogen with and through neighbouring regions (North Africa, Middle East and Turkey, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Iceland) connecting the EU with key producers in the next decades.
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  To identify, quantify and evaluate the barriers and potential benefits of a large European "energy connected areaâ€.
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  To recommend the necessary measures to be adopted to ensure and implement these energy corridors, realise a high-level of network security and organise workshops and a final stakeholders conference to assure consensus among scientists, stakeholders and NGO's and to validate the results.

The Technical Assistance team started to present the findings of the project in December 2006. More information is available at: http://www.encouraged.info/index.html .

Energy Efficiency Finance Facility with CEB/KfW and with EIB

In 2006, the European Commission decided to establish two multi-beneficiary programmes on energy efficiency, together with the Council of Europe Development Bank in co-operation with Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau and the European Investment Bank. The projects will cover Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey. Both projects aim at providing financial assistance to the acceding and candidate countries in increasing investments in energy efficiency. The total budget of the " Energy Efficiency Finance Facility  " is € 145 million (€ 29 million EC contribution + € 92 million CEB/KfW + € 24 million EIB).

Pre-Accession Assistance

In the framework of its pre-accession assistance for Turkey, the European Commission also provides considerable direct support to the Turkish energy sector, in particular in the areas of legislative alignment and institution building.

A project of € 1.07 million (2002) aimed at strengthening the administrative capacity of the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) by a Twinning project and supply components. Twinning projects second experts from EU member states to candidate countries to share their experience with the implementation of EU rules. In this case, the Italian Regulatory Authority for Electricity and Gas provided support for the Twinning component. In 2003, a new project was initiated to develop a regulatory information system for EMRA (€ 0.68 million).

Assistance has also been provided to the Turkish Petroleum Pipeline Company BOTAS on gas transmission and transit through a service contract of € 1.77 million (2003).

For the connection of Turkey to the EU electricity grid, another project provided complementary technical studies for the synchronisation of the Turkish power system with the UCTE (Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity) system (2003). The project had a total budget of € 1.45 million. In order to improve the conditions for cross border electricity trade in Turkey in compliance with the best practices in the EU, a Twinning project for € 1.38 million was programmed in 2006.

A Twinning consortium comprised of ADEME of France and Senter Novem of the Netherlands provided assistance for the improvement of energy efficiency in Turkey (2003). The project budget was € 1.25 million. The Twinning project will be supported by a public awareness project on energy efficiency in buildings. The public awareness project was programmed in 2005 and has a total budget of € 1.07 million.

Finally, the Commission approved the establishment of the FEMIP (Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership) support fund for Turkey in 2005. The Fund aims at financing technical assistance activities complementary to EIB operations. Total budget is € 3 million and 50% of the funds is allocated for infrastructure related projects. The fund can be used as a tool to support large scale EIB interventions in the energy area as well.