High energy crisis are affecting economies and companies but they can be the driver of progress in the energy sector. At the same time, the energy policymakers in the EU failed to deliver common solutions to the problems in the energy field in the past decade but the South-Eastern part of Europe could pioneer the change in this matter, according to Kaloyan Staykov, Chief Economist, Energy Management Institute.

„If we think about the green energy revolution, it came because of high energy prices. This time, natural gas is hurting us much more than oil did but this can lead to innovation and to different business models and different technological solutions. So I don’t see high prices as an evil that should be fought at all costs. This is something we see in the German energy prices. When energy prices are high in Germany, so are in the rest of Europe. This is an issue and it should be thought about more. By the way, this is a lesson Europe should have learned back in 2009 – 2010. You cannot have a union and a common market and different countries just doing whatever they want and this not having consequences for the neighboring countries or Europe as a whole”, Staykov said, at the conference “Regional Approach Sofia – Energy Goes Both Ways”, organized by Energynomics.

The EU energy policymakers didn’t manage to create a real union in terms of deciding together with all the member states and this is the reason some countries can afford to make unilateral decisions that affect the whole EU.

„Europe should be much more regionally based especially in terms of cooperation between Bulgaria, Romania and Greece. It’s very easy to see where these countries could cooperate in the energy sector and it’s much easier to create a larger market for LNG for example and actually negotiate on regional bases. This is a solution we have been talking about since 2009. We should negotiate a common European price for natural gas but since 2009 we didn’t see any of this”, he added.

Another major issue is the infrastructure, which is underdeveloped because it has been considered a boring issue but now, with the current energy prices, the funds might not be so easy to attract for the development of the energy sector.

„Infrastructure has been a very boring subject; we didn’t talk about infrastructure in the past 10 years. We have to catch up in the last 10 years and we have to invest more in the next ten years because the plans are becoming more ambitious and companies are investing in their own energy sources and this is changing the whole consumption pattern of the country. But unfortunately, the financial conditions are not going to be favorable, interest rates are going up, so there is going to be a scarcity of public funds. And governments are going to be more selective with the projects they will support”, according to Staykov.

The conference “Regional Approach Sofia – Energy Goes Both Ways” was organized by Energynomics with the support of our partners: ABB România, Electro-Service RB, Kawasaki Gas Turbine Europe, Signify.