ARMENIAN AND REGIONAL ENERGETIC PROCESSES IN THE CONTEXT OF INFORMATION SUPPORT
What should be the basis for regional informational security? What should be a guide-line for Armenia on the global competitive resource market where the companies from the countries, which do not have enough hydrocarbon resources to support their economic development, are extensively included? What is the place of Armenia on the energetic map of the region? And finally, what is the role of information support in the elaboration and promotion of particular projects in energetic?
The answers to these questions play a key role in the process of elaboration of the efficient policy directed to the real integration of the countries of the region in the sphere of energetic.
1.Information wars and political nature of a number of projects
The current regional energetic projects “suffer” from the limitation of transit schemes, which is conditioned by political reasons, and cannot be regarded as the paragon of multilateral collaboration. The prime cause of such a situation is the political rivalry, the competition of energetic “heavy weights” for the oil or gas fields, boreholes, pipelines. Such a competition substitutes real collaboration in the region of South Caucasus and engages our countries in useless and unpromising dispute around politically and not economically reasoned projects.
Today it is much spoken about the necessity to elaborate new architecture of security in the world and mainly in South Caucasus. I think it would be right and appropriate to elaborate new concept of energy security of the region.
We should admit that the energetic situation in the region is covered very insufficiently and very often unilaterally on different levels, including national level. It is not a secret that the political nature of energetic projects in South Caucasus hits the pocket of every inhabitant of that region. Meanwhile, the low level of awareness among the population of the countries of the region causes the elites to implement political projects, which do not have sufficient economic verification and thus they put a time bomb under the energetic and generate further speculative occurrences on international energy market and this may definitely be the reason of the latest global and financial crisis.
Therefore, a new quality of information support is needed to bear the initiatives of the political and business elites. We need constant “authorities-business” feedback. We need the situation when creative plans and projects of business-elite have objective and highly professional informational support and create necessary “background” and motivation for the regional political leaders so that those projects were regarded as viable and vital for the development of the country. The foregoing collaboration should promote to the creation of the appropriate convenient medium for the mutual integration of energetic programs.
At present, unfortunately, the situation is far from the creation of above-mentioned reference points. Each country, undoubtedly, chooses its own system and model of energy security ensuring, but at the same time they do not take into consideration the tendencies and the projects, which are carried out in that neighbouring countries (where in our opinion there are ample opportunities for collaboration and optimization of national energetic sectors).
This happens:
- Due to the lack of confidence in political and economic integration of the countries of the region and on this basis each of the countries of the region chooses the concept of maximal energy independence and self-sufficiency.
- Due to practically complete political nature of the information support of all the energetic projects, both national and regional.
In my opinion it is necessary today:
- To elaborate by common efforts some kind of “code of conduct” in information space, mainly for the coverage of regional energetic projects. The principles of objectiveness and honesty, pragmatism and collaboration orientation should lie at the root of that “code”;
- To use the informational resources we have to spread progressive forms and methods of energetic management and actively involve the population in the discussion of the issues of energy security of countries of the region and mainly of Armenia;
- To raise constantly the proficiency of the participants of the informational processes. The information must be professional and of high quality. Unfortunately at present one can rarely meet the objective and high quality analysis of the energetic projects and development models [1].
The creation of free energy market in South Caucasus by means of the integration of national energy systems, service corridors and all the available scientific and technological potential is one of the basic terms for the improvement of the quality of life in the countries of the region. This is one of the paramount objectives of international diplomacy [2]. “Energy without borders” – this should become a slogan.
2. New quality in the policy of Armenia
Today we can state that Armenia, which does not have any hydrocarbon resources and access to the sea, can be regarded on the background of complex and ambiguous political and economic processes going on in the countries of the region as a striking and potent example of the successful solution of the problem of maintaining the desired level of energetic security of the country.
One of the means of further energetic security upgrade of Armenia is the elaboration of qualitatively new export policy on the state level, which should be aimed on the creation of unique and very efficient capabilities for boosting external economic exchange of the Republic of Armenia with the neighbouring countries and this will promote to the energetic security upgrade of the country. Armenia should be very active in the process of elaboration and consistent implementation of the new regional projects, which have “common point” for the countries of our region. Amid the global financial and economical crisis there is no alternative for regional collaboration, especially in the sphere of energetic.
Armenia, which possesses two gas pipelines and underground storage facilities for gas and also additional competitive productive capacities, has all the chances to become a kind of regional liberal energetic field. The solution of this not simple problem supposes the implementation of the ambitious programs in the near future, either in the economy of Armenian on the whole or in energetic particularly. The aims and goals of that problem may be set out in the following thesises.
- Energetic security upgrade of Armenia by means of competitive export market grouping;
- The elaboration and implementation of state policy of the RA directed to the real support of export oriented energetic projects which should be based on flexible price policy;
- The elaboration of unified stance of the strategic partners directed to the extension of the cooperation in the field of regional energetic, which should include not only the nearest neighbours of Armenian but also Turkmenistan, Iraq and other countries.
Here are the conditions under which Armenia can turn into energetic “base” of the region: the further liberalization of external economic exchange, the enlargement of the access to the innovative achievements, progressive technical standards and methods of state and corporative economy management, real shift to the new quality of export policy. The part of the professional information support in the implementation of the aforementioned ambitious program is undoubtedly big.
All the aforementioned cannot be fully implemented if all the regional actors do not realize the importance of consolidating prospects of the cooperation in the sphere of energetic, of the acceptance and the observation of the legal status (which is coordinated with international norms and is not changed at once own will or unilaterally). Today Armenia regards the new energetic situation as very positive fact for itself and is conscious of real opportunity of being involved in big regional energetic projects and it has all the chances to become one of the key actors on the energetic map of South Caucasus.
And at the end, we think that it would be much easier to implement that large-scale task when there is a proper level of information support of our initiations and projects, on which we reckon in the course of our activity.
December 2008
Sources and literature
- Կարապետյան Կ., Հայաստանի Հանրապետության էներգետիկ անվտանգության հեռանկարները, Եր., Էդիթ Պրինտ, 2008թ.
- Կարապետյան Կ., Տարածաշրջանային համագործակցության և էներգետիկ անվտանգության հիմնախնդիրները Հարավային Կովկասում, Եր., Էդիթ Պրինտ, 2008:
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