The Problem of Energy Transit in EU Energy Policy

The paper deals with the problem of analysis of the problem of energy transit in EU energy policy. The issue of energy transit is one of the key topics of the EU energy policy, because EU energy market depends on the import of energy resources. From the point of view of transit and supply of energy resources to the EU, the situation was not the same. Since the 1990s, the geography of the transit routes has been becoming more complex and was more under the technological, economic and political risks. During the soviet times one transit route (i.e. pipeline transporting the gas from the USSR to the countries of western Europe) was fully controlled by the state-owned supplier which was transporting the gas extracted by the same company. The fuel was delivered to a hub on Western and Eastern border and sold to large European wholesale customers. Further, they would transport the gas through their own pipelines to the final customers in Europe. Such system survived after the destruction of the Soviet Union.However the control over the pipeline system, formerloy going through the territory of USSR, and afterwards located in a different state, passed to such states. In the meantime, the obligation of a steady supply of gas to the customers in the Western Europe in agreed time and volume remained with a Russian monopolist. The relationship with the transit state was not subject of the gas supply agreement. In 2000s such system proved to be inefficient and unstable. It could be demonstrated by the two Russia-Ukraine gas crises. In addition, the market reality has changed because of introducing the LNG supplies, renewable sources. In 2009 the Third Energy Package was adopted introducing the new functioning of the energy market based on competition principles. Three successively adopted energy packages of the EU (first - 1998, second - 2003, third - 2009) provided a gradual transition from centralized to liberal and competitive gas market. Prior to this, the main market participants were vertically integrated monopolies. The new architecture of the EU gas market began to diverge from the contractual structure of gas supplies to Western Europe, which has developed in the gas industry itself since the early 1960s.We made the conclusion the current situation provokes the need for development the new transit routes for the supply of Russian gas into Europe allowing to comply with the new market rules of the European Union