European Energy Security And Strategy Option

The energy is the important material foundation of human beings' production and life. Broadly speaking,since energy has become the indispensable driving power of industrial society, energy security came into being. But in modern sense,the concept of energy security didn't appear until the oil crisis occurred in early 1970s.With the development of social economy,energy security has continuously enriched and developed. It has not an simply economic problem,but becomes a comprehensive security issues.As a large Consumer and importer,European energy security consists of two basic aspects of enery supply and using.In the 21st century,European energy security is facing serious internal and external challenges under the influence of internal and international environment.There are many problems in the interior of European.The development of European economy requires a large amount of energy, but it is lack of energy. More than half of the European energy needs to rely on imports,European energy consumption is mainly fossil fuels.Because of irrational structure of energy consumption,there is increasing pressure of environmental protection in European.Additionally,European has yet to form a unified internal energy market and there are differences between EU member countries.These internal problems threaten to the European. From an external perspective,with the continued growth of energy demand and the reduction of internal supply,European external energy dependence is rising.As the contradiction between the global energy supply and demand has become increasingly prominent,the European traditional energy supply market in the Middle East is unstable.And the energy supply from Russian is great uncertainty.This situation makes the European energy security controlled by others.In order to go out the difficult position of energy security, European Union has turned toward the direction of the common energy strategy with great efforts.follows the European integration development,the European Union energy strategy has also been being during the change.Along with the development of European integration, the EU energy strategy has been changing.The natural gas crisis in early 2006 has fully exposed the vulnerability of the European energy supply.Therefore,European Commission has published the new energy green paper"A European Strategy for Sustainable,Competitive and Secure Energy"in March 2006.It accelerated the pace ofimplementation of the common energy strategy.European new energy paper put forward three main objectives:Sustainability,Competitiveness and Security of supply. In order to ensure the implementation of these three objectives,EU developed internal and external energy strategy against the internal and external energy security problem. At the domestic aspects of EU,it should improve energy consumption structure and unify internal energy market to achieve management and intervention on energy demand.Among these,improving energy consumption structure focuses on the alternative energy and conservation of energy.At the external aspects of EU,it developed a common energy diplomacy policy.It should rethink the dependence of traditional energy source in the Middle East energy and stabilize energy supply from the Middle East.And it should continue to maintain the energy dialogue with Russia.In addition,the EU also actively explore new channels of energy imports - the Central Asian energy market in order to achieve the diversification of energy supply.Since"A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energ "was published,the EU has been actively promoting the implementation of this common strategy.Generally speaking,EU energy strategy is comprehensive and effective.Its progresses concrete on implementation better of energy-saving emission reduction goals and some achievements of energy import channels diversificational.Of course, the EU energy strategy also faces various difficulties in the implementation process, such as the traditional energy-based energy consumption structure is difficult to fundamentally change, the unity of EU internal energy market faces to great resistance to and member states has not a unified energy strategy toRussia.Faced with these difficulties,the EU should continue to coordinate the pace of action among the Member States.Moreover,it should focus on the effective integration of implemening internal and external energy strategy.EU will gradually achieve the three objectives of energy strategy.Like EU,China is facing tough challenges too.As a comprehensive and effective strategy,the EU energy strategy is an important reference to improving the Chinese energy strategy.Research on this strategy can bring many new enlightenments to China in implementing and improving the the energy legislation,environmental protection and all-around energy diplomacy.