Suchergebnisse

AbstractSecurity of supply refers to governmental policies that aim to secure the availability of critical products at all times. The COVID-19 pandemic brought to fore the importance of such policies, as suddenly there was an overwhelming need for critical medical supplies that the markets were not able to fulfil. Following the pandemic, the EU has started to construct its own security of supply policy, although lacking an explicit competence for it. This Article shows how competence on security of supply is actually split between the EU and the Member States, and highlights the consequences of this division.

Energy security is back at top of the political agenda. Prime reasons are tighter energy markets in general, high capacity utilization in OPEC oil production and a volatile Middle East. As European demand for natural gas is rapidly growing, the European gas market may eventually become tight. When the market is liberalized, prices will react more directly than before with regard to whether or not there will be sufficient supplies to meet demand growth. It is of significant interest how a potential disruption of supply from one source, possibly Norway, Algeria or Russia, or another, caused by nature, military, political or economic reasons, could be dealt with among consuming European countries, as addressed in ED (2002).

The point of view from which this article is written is that the world-wide trend toward increased use of oil involves Western Europe in greater risks of interruption of supplies than it does the other major world consumers (the United States and the USSR), who produce most of their own oil; and that the implications of permitting the trend to continue to develop at its present rate should be seriously reconsidered. The trend toward increased use of oil in Western Europe has been clear for some years, as it was for the United States a bit earlier and has become for the USSR more recently. What is somewhat alarming at the present time is that the process is speeding up in Western Europe and that resistance to it is weakening.

From the bulge of Africa to Indonesia via West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, the Gulf has been of vital interests to the Western Powers, since time immemorial for multiple reasons. Situated at this junction of three continents-namely, Asia, Africa and Europe, the Gulf region provides linkages over land and across sea between Europe and the Indian subcontinent on the one side and Africa and India on the other side. It offers the shortest and cheapest trade and transit routes between the West and the East. It commands a vast reservoir of oil, about 60 per cent of the world's proven reserves of oil, which enormously contributes to the affluence of the Western World, especially the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic struck the world hard in early 2020, and we are still coping with the ramifications of the ongoing crisis. The most acute concerns deal with the gloomy economic impact of the pandemic. However, the crisis has also revealed severe shortcomings in the EU's approach to the security of supply. Many member states initially found themselves dealing with the crisis alone or lacking essential medical resources. Since the early stages, it has become evident that while security of supply has so far been a matter of national decisions, the EU needs a comprehensive strategy to improve its crisis resilience. Finland has a long tradition of making a coordinated effort to ensure an adequate supply of items needed for emergencies. Thus, the Finnish model could provide the basis for a more inclusive and integrated EU-level security of supply.