Abstract
Tonini’s paper focuses on the interrelationship between the attempts to create a common European energy policy, on one hand, and the institutional development of the European Union (and its predecessors), on the other hand. In particular, this paper investigates the EU Commission long struggle for a larger role in energy policy and security, the birth of the European energy policy, and its first outcomes. The EU members have in common a predominance of fossil fuels use and a reliance of foreign gas and oil imports, despite the apparent differences in their energy mixes. Realizing that once united, they would be stronger, in the 1970s member States started to seek common solutions. Markets have so far ensured proper supplies, but the growing tendency for importing from Russia and the Middle East makes governments’ intervention increasingly necessary. Given that markets do not function optimally everywhere, and that many fuel suppliers are State-owned companies, State level discussions are becoming more relevant.
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Notes
- 1.
Oliver Geden, Clémence Marcelis, Andreas Maurer, “Perspectives for the European Union’s External Energy Policy”, Working Paper FG1 2006/17, SWP Berlin, December 2006, p. 3.
- 2.
Interview with Georges Brondel, former Head of Directorate General for Energy of the EEC Commission, (in French) by Éric Bussière, Julie Cailleau et Armelle Demagny, Paris, 25 February 2004, in Histoire interne de la Commission européenne 1958–1973, Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence.
- 3.
European Community Information Service, Europe and Energy, Luxemburg 1967, p. 10.
- 4.
Estimates from the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multi-national Corporations, U.S. Oil Companies and the Arab Oil Embargo: The International Allocation of Constricted Supplies, a report prepared by the Federal Energy Administration, 94th Congress, 1st Session, 27 January 1975, Washington (DC), p. 7.
- 5.
In Europe, the northern countries—Britain, West Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium—could be distinguished from southern Europe by their lower dependence on oil (48, 55, 44 and 57 % respectively) and by their domestic coal and gas production. France and Italy (and Japan) used imported oil for 70 % or more of their energy needs and did not produce significant quantities of oil or gas. Edward Krapels, “Oil and Security: Problems and Prospects for Importing Countries”, in Gregory Treverton (ed.), Energy and Security, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1980, pp. 40–42.
- 6.
Robert Lieber, “Energy, Economics and Security in Alliance Perspective”, in International Security, Vol. 4, No. 4. (Spring, 1980), p. 144.
- 7.
Ibid, p. 139.
- 8.
Krapels, op. cit., p. 63.
- 9.
Leo Wesseling, “Present Structure of Europe’s Petroleum Market”, in Edmond Völker (ed.), Euro-Arab Cooperation, Leyden, 1976, p. 76.
- 10.
Richard Cooper, “National Resources and National Security”, in The Middle East and the International System (Part II): Security and the Energy Crisis, Adelphi Paper, n. 115, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1974, p. 11.
- 11.
Wesseling, op. cit., p. 79.
- 12.
Georges Brondel, “Europe’s Petroleum Market. Alternatives for the Present Structure”, in Völker, op. cit., p. 84.
- 13.
Vessela Chakarova, Oil Supply Crisis: Cooperation and Discord in the West, Lexington Books, Lanham (MD) 2013, p. 62.
- 14.
The Netherlands (as well as the US and UK) played an important role in the oil industry until the 1970s through its “parenthood” of oil majors. Royal Dutch Shell, while not government-owned, did closely cooperate with the Dutch government, and government-business cooperation proved to be one of the most important factors in times of crisis in the 1950s and 1960s. Cfr. Chakarova, op. cit., p. 34.
- 15.
Chakarova, op. cit., p. 68.
- 16.
International Herald Tribune, November 28, 1973.
- 17.
Robert Lieber, “Europe and America in the World Energy Crisis”, in International Affairs, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, Vol. 55, No. 4. (Oct., 1979), p. 533.
- 18.
Ibid, p. 536.
- 19.
The data shown in Table 1 should be interpreted as only a very rough approximation since stock levels fluctuate to a considerable extent during the year. These estimates should not be considered to provide a realistic assessment of the number of days each country could do without imported supplies. As a rule of thumb, about half of the stocks held should be considered the working inventory of the oil industry. Krapels, op. cit., p. 72.
- 20.
Krapels, op. cit., p. 50.
- 21.
Statistical Office of the European Communities, Energy Statistics Yearbook, 1970–1975, Luxembourg, January 1976, pp. 32–33.
- 22.
Opinion expressed by U.S. Senator Henry Jackson during his hearing before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Washington (DC), August 5, 1975.
- 23.
National Petroleum Council, Petroleum Storage for National Security, Washington (DC), 1975.
- 24.
Article by Walter Levy, The Economist, 31 July 1976.
- 25.
Krapels, op. cit., p. 48.
- 26.
Robert Stobaugh, “The Oil Companies in the Crisis”, in Daedalus, Fall 1975, p. 189.
- 27.
Chakarova, op. cit., p. 63.
- 28.
Horst Mendershausen, Coping with the Oil Crisis, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins U.P., 1976.
- 29.
Chakarova, op. cit., p. 63.
- 30.
Krapels, op. cit., p. 59.
- 31.
Lieber (1980), op. cit., p. 147.
- 32.
Lieber (1980), op. cit., p. 148.
- 33.
Leonard Biegel, “The Camel’s Hair Curtain: The Arab World and the West”, in Völker, op. cit, pp. 65–67.
- 34.
Guy de Carmoy, Energy for Europe. Economic and Political Implications, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington 1977, p. 105.
- 35.
The New York Times, March 6, 1974.
- 36.
The New York Times, March 16, 1974.
- 37.
Benjamin Shwadran, Middle East Oil Crises Since 1973, Westview Press, London 1986, p. 100.
- 38.
U.S. Senate, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Implications of Recent Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Oil Price Increases, Washington D.C., 1974, p. 12.
- 39.
Saleh Al-Mani, The Euro-Arab Dialogue. A Study in Associative Diplomacy, Frances Pinter, London 1983, p. 125.
- 40.
Shwadran (1986), op. cit., p. 101.
- 41.
Ibrahim A. Obaid, “Political Preconditions for Cooperation with Western Europe”, in Edmond Völker (ed), Euro-Arab Cooperation, proceedings of the International Conference on “Changing Political and Economic Relations between Western Europe and the Arab Countries”, organized by the Europa Instituut of the University of Amsterdam, Sijthoff Publishing Co., Leyden 1976, p. 172.
- 42.
Europe, November 28, 1975.
- 43.
Shwadran (1986), op. cit., p. 110.
- 44.
P.R. Odell and K.E. Rosine, The North Sea Oil Province: an Attempt to Stimulate its Development and Exploitation, Kogan Page Ltd., London 1975, infra.
- 45.
Völker (1976), op. cit., pp. 114–115.
- 46.
Svein Andersen, “Energy Policy: Interest Interactions and Supranational Authority”, in Svein Andersen and Kjell Eliassen (eds), Making Policy in Europe, 2nd Edition, Sage Publications, London 2001, p. 109.
- 47.
On the Commission’s investigation into cheap gas supply, see EEC Commission, 14th Report on Competition Policy, Office for Official Publications of the EEC, Luxembourg, p. 152.
- 48.
Dieter Helm, John Kay and David Thompson (eds), The Market for Energy, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989, pp. 32–40.
- 49.
Francis McGowan, “Conflicting Objectives in European Energy Policy”, in Colin Crouch and David Marquand (eds), The Politics of 1992. Beyond the Single European Market, Basil Blackwell, Cambridge (MA), 1990, pp. 127–128.
- 50.
Ibid, p. 129.
- 51.
Crouch and Marquand, op. cit., p. 137.
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Tonini, A. (2016). The EEC Commission and European Energy Policy: A Historical Appraisal. In: Bardazzi, R., Pazienza, M., Tonini, A. (eds) European Energy and Climate Security. Lecture Notes in Energy, vol 31. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21302-6_2
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