Tallinn, Stenbock House, 10 July 2008 – At today’s meeting between
Prime Minister Andrus Ansip and the Foreign Minister of Hungary, Kinga
Goncz, energy economy and security were the main topics discussed. The
Prime Minister noted that Estonia supports the goals of the European
Union Climate and Energy Package, but also considers the safeguarding
of energy security on such isolated energy islands as the Baltic States
to be very important.“It is important for Estonia to diversify its energy portfolio, but the
establishment of transmission network connections with the internal
market of the European Union is no less important,” said the Prime
Minister. Together, it was noted that the provision of energy
security greatly depends on the development of electricity and gas
interconnection pipelines between the Member States. Andrus
Ansip stated that energy security in the European Union must be
understood in a wider sense, not only as the security of supply of gas
and oil supplies, but the security of supply of electric energy as
well. Kinga Goncz noted that Hungary covers almost 40% of its
energy needs from nuclear electricity, and gas supplies, which have
been marked for diversification, have become the main energy security
problem. At the meeting, cyber security and the cooperation
between research and development activities were also touched upon
briefly.
