14 January 2007

GPPi fellow discusses energy security on Deutsche Welle TV

On 12 January 2007, GPPi Fellow Sergey Lagodinsky was once again a guest on Quadriga, a political talk show on Deutsche Welle TV which brings together experts to discuss current affairs. The topic of this week’s session was the energy security policy of the European Union.

Sergey Lagodinsky stressed the need to diversify energy sources in the European Union. At the same time, he cautioned that the road towards a common European energy policy will be a rocky one, since preferences among European countries in their relations with Russia vary significantly. Many Eastern European members are almost 100% dependent on Russian energy and thus have a very asymmetric relationship. Others including Germany are interdependent since only part of their energy needs are met by Russia. Still others like France have an even greater degree of independence from Russian resources due to other energy sources such as nuclear power.

Sergey Lagodinsky emphasized that this year might become a test for the robustness of both Russia’s foreign policy and its economy, both heavily reliant on energy exports. With oil prices gradually falling, Russia might realize that the "gas and oil lever" it used in 2006 may by itself be insufficient to advance its political interests. "Not only should the European Union think about a diversification of its energy sources," Lagodinsky argued, "for Russia, too, it is high time to think about diversifying its foreign policy instruments."

The two programs (a German and an English version) were aired on 12 January 2007 and are also available as a video on demand.

The German-language version is available here

The English-language version is available here

For more information on this week’s guests on Quadriga, please click here.

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