RIGA - Andris Piebalgs, the European Commissioner for energy, visited his native Latvia this week, where in a series of whirlwind meetings with government officials and journalists he tried to explain Europe's strategic energy strategy and assuage rising fears of dependence on Russian hydrocarbons.
Since becoming Latvia's representative in the EU's massively powerful executive branch 's which he did after the previous candidate, Ingrida Udre, was dumped by EC President Jose Manuel Barroso 's Piebalgs has seen his stardom rise rapidly.
What's more, in the past two-and-a-half years since he occupied the post, Russia has fomented two energy crises 's both of which were a disaster in terms of PR 's and a controversial pipeline project with Germany, all of which together have propelled energy issues to the top of EU's priority list. Piebalgs, in turn, has found himself in the eye of a storm.
However, the commissioner refuses to dramatize the situation. Russia, he said, is a reliable energy partner, and will remain so. Russia needs a trustworthy buyer of its energy products, and it knows there is no better buyer than Europe, Piebalgs suggested.
"I don't see any problems with guaranteed deliveries of energy resources," he said on Feb. 5. He added that there may be a problem over price, but that it stands to reason that energy prices will continue to rise.
Piebalgs also threw cold water over two of the Baltics' largest energy infrastructure projects: a new atomic power plant in Lithuania and a mega-natural gas reservoir in Dobele, Latvia.
Piebalgs has never hidden his skepticism about a new nuclear power plant in the Baltics, and he confirmed that stance this week. "It's a political project," he was quoted as saying. Brussels has yet to receive any blueprints from the project's creators, so he said it was too early to judge its merits. For his part, Piebalgs believes that the Baltic states should do more to diversify its energy resources and increase the use of renewables in its energy mix.
Regarding a new underground gas reservoir, Piebalgs told journalists that this project is also up in the air. First of all, he said there is still no study certifying that the caves beneath Dobele can be used to store natural gas.
Second, the proposed volume of storage 's 11 billion cubic meters 's is far too much gas to be economically feasible, the commissioner suggested. That kind of gas requires a large buyer, and the biggest consumers in the neighborhood 's Germany and Poland 's may not be interested.
Finally, any gas reservoir needs a pipeline to get the gas to market, and it is unclear who would finance the construction of this infrastructure.
Piebalgs also discussed reductions of CO2 emissions while meeting with government ministers.
