In the evening of January 23 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) made a statement on the “The hazard of using the energy crisis as a tool to put political pressure.” In this statement the PACE was hopeful that one of the greatest energy suppliers of the world, Russia, would join the Energetic Charter of European states.
The PACE has also criticized the incident of the last year, when Russia limited the supplied natural gas to Ukraine. Moreover the European deputies expressed their concern that the prices are formed not based on market principles. The PACE has petitioned all the 46 CoE states to join the Energetic Charter of European states as well comply with their international obligations of the energy sector and allow other states approach the gas pipeline.
Member of the Armenian delegation in CoE, Artashes Geghamyan has also made a speech on this topic. He mentioned that the issue is especially important for Armenia because it constantly feels this kind of pressure from its neighbors Azerbaijan and Turkey. Because of that the mentioned states are building the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzrum gas pipelines. The neighboring states are using those factors to put pressure on Armenia and isolate Armenia from all the regional projects. The economic pressure turns into political pressure in the aspect of resolving the Karabagh conflict.
However, Europe focuses its concern on Russia. In parallel with the full PACE session the annual session of Davos was opened in Switzerland. On January 22 the speakers of the session presented a sensational report. According to their predictions in a year USSR will again appear on the world map because of the high prices of oil. In their reports the presenters warned the population of the world that in 2008 the price of oil may increase three times and reach 150 USD per barrel (at present the oil price is about 50 USD per barrel). The rapid increase of oil price will cause the increase of the natural gas and gasoline prices. According to the Russian “Komsomolskaya pravda” newspaper think that certain alliance of oil producers may be formed, which may include those states which offer lower prices. Russia will of course play an important role in the formation of the alliance. The experts of Davos Forum think that in the event of such an alliance formation Armenia, Uzbekistan and most strangely Georgia will be the first states to join it. The scientists believe that those three countries already have energy deficit.
NA Deputy, economist Tatul Manaseryan finds such a concern of Europe extremely exaggerated. “I don’t think that USSR may be formed. I don’t see either economic or political grounds for that. As an economist I’d like to say that when we are speaking about the interconnection of states then based on the theories of Smith, Ricardo and Porter this is a natural phenomenon. It’s when the competitive advantages of states are used in the best way. There can be no return of the USSR as in the whole world the system works in way, which doesn’t enable us to come up with concrete predictions. Although the power and dependence of Russia is evident (not only for CIS but also European countries) it doesn’t mean that it may convert into political dependence,” mentioned Manaseryan. “Regarding energetic dependence I have numerously written about the thesis that the opportunities of forming a single energy system still maintain. And this relates to not only the three Caucasian states but also Turkey,” said Manaseryan. He believes that the energetic system is one of the most developed and competitive branches of Armenia’s economy. As a negative aspect of energetic security Manaseryan mentioned the current situation of the energetic sector of Armenia and added that considering the principle that there are no countries in world, which are absolutely free (even if they produce gas, oil, etc). In this regard the situation of Armenia is more than favorable. The deputy however doesn’t approve the policy of the government to fully privatize the energy enterprises of Armenia. He supports the forms of mixed state properties and offering part of those enterprises to the Diaspora and local Armenians.