Energy infrastructure will still play an important role in southern Europe and the Balkans as the countries in the region restart their economies and plan their recovery from the coronavirus crisis, Geopolitical Futures COO Antonia Colibasanu told a New Europe energy webinar on April 29.

The Bucharest-based geopolitical expert said that while the European Union and the member states may look to protect the environment and maintain the low levels of pollution seen during the pandemic when economic activity was paused, at the end of the day every country has specific energy needs.

“There are specific needs to Greece and Romania and regions in Romania or Greece. So, I believe we’re also going towards a Europe where specific needs are becoming more important at least in the short and medium term for the energy geopolitics and particularly for the oil price and the fact that it crushed really affects the exporters,” Colibasanu said. “And there is one big exporter in our region that is affected heavily – Russia – which also affects the Balkans, particularly the western Balkans,” she said.

For example, Colibasanu said, low oil prices have negatively impacted Russian gas monopoly Gazprom’s facilities in Romania’s neighbour, Serbia, and that may resonate into Serbian economics. Serbian oil company NIS, majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft, reported on April 27 a loss of $10.16 million in the first quarter of 2020, citing slump in crude oil prices and demand amid coronavirus lockdown, according to Reuters. One of the biggest contributors to Serbia’s budget, NIS operates two refineries, plus fields in Serbia, Bosnia and Romania. “This points out to these countries having again to choose on the short term, medium term and long-term partners and economic models. So, it becomes even more complicated for a region that has been in the crossroads,” Colibasanu told New Europe.

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Several countries in Southern Europe and the Balkans, including Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania aim to become energy hubs. But Colibasanu opined that a network of pipelines and interconnectors are more important than becoming an energy hub. “Infrastructure is indeed continuing and infrastructure will become more important including the infrastructure that has to do with more technology, including infrastructure that has to do with more green energy than it had before which is basically the way our society is moving on,” she said.

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Speaking at the same New Europe webinar, Arturo Lorenzoni, deputy mayor of the Italian city of Padova and professor of Energy Economics at University of Padova, said the economic recovery presents an opportunity for sustainability. “We need to restart the economy, of course, but we have to leave behind what was wrong with our previous economic model,” he said. “For example, I’m responsible for the mobility in my city and for sure we need to have a different mobility, partly because we cannot use our buses as previously because we expect to have half the capacity in a bus now compared to the past. But we cannot buy double number of buses to give the same service so we need to find different models and, of course, we cannot imagine to have private cars for all the people who are commuting in and out of the city,” Lorenzoni said. “So, we have to invest in bike lanes. We have to invest in a different model of mobility for the city. We have to understand how to restart with a different model much more focused on sustainability,” he said.

Lorenzoni also called for an increased use of renewables, especially solar energy, in his region, Veneto, which is one of the most industrialised parts of Italy.

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Colibasanu said there will be changes in society that will impact energy post COVID-19. “After the shock, as Arturo said, buses are not going to be the same. Our society is not going to be the same. Isolation is not just going to go away and we will be able to hug each other the next day after the government announces the relaxation of its isolation policy. That’s not going to happen because mentally humans are not like that. The fear is going to stay with us which is something that is going to force both the economy and the politics to where they can facilitate the human wellbeing,” Colibasanu said, adding, “and that has many answers really but in these many answers the critical infrastructure of energy has to be there and that’s why the investment in critical infrastructure that has to do with energy and technology will continue even in the short term as we recover from all this.”

 

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