Abstract
The EU has a range of policy tools for dealing with the challenges it faces in the regional and international gas trade: when 1) integrating Norway into the Single European Market (SEM), 2) coping with Russia, 3) securing supply of Algerian gas and 4) taking advantage of the rising global trade in LNG. Norway as a major gas exporter to the EU shares interests with other major gas suppliers, Russia and Algeria. This chapter analyses the EU’s approaches to the governance of regional gas markets and responses of Norway, Russia, Algeria and the countries that export LNG to the EU that have chosen various strategies of relating to EU regulatory and market power. Some sell gas at the EU border while others develop other forms of cooperation with the EU.
The authors would like to thank the participants of the NUPI’s EUNOR workshops in 2016 and 2017 for valuable feedback on earlier versions of this chapter.
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- 1.
These issues are dealt with in detail in Chap. 2 of this book, whereas our focus is on how the EU has influenced the strategies of its key external gas suppliers.
- 2.
This has been argued by, inter alia, Indra Øverland: see Chap. 4 in this volume.
- 3.
See Chap. 6 of this volume for further details.
- 4.
See Chap. 5 for more on this, as well as Russia’s formal and informal channels of influence.
- 5.
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/imports-and-secure-supplies/supplier-countries download. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
- 6.
As discussed in detail by Indra Øverland in Chap. 4.
- 7.
- 8.
The Commission successfully settles GFU case with Norwegian gas producers; European Commission, IP/02/1084 17/07/2002, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-02-1084_en.htm.
- 9.
As detailed by Godzimirski, Chap. 5 in this volume.
- 10.
See Goldthau and Sitter, Chap. 2 in this volume.
- 11.
This is also evident from the fact that its lobbying efforts in the EU have been minimal; see Godzimirski, Chap. 5 of this volume.
- 12.
For the claim that EU regulation adds billions of euros to overall UK energy bills and that Brexit would make consumers better off, see ‘A chance to take £33bn burden off shoulders of small businesses’ http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1670391.ece and https://britain-europe.com/2016/03/24/the-costs-and-benefits-of-eu-energy-and-climate-policy/.
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Andersen, S.S., Sitter, N. (2019). The EU’s Strategy Towards External Gas Suppliers and Their Responses: Norway, Russia, Algeria and LNG. In: Godzimirski, J.M. (eds) New Political Economy of Energy in Europe. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93360-3_3
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