The Polish-German Energy Forum was initiated by the Centre for International Relations and is executed in cooperation with the German partner Pflüger Internationale Beratung GmbH. Professor Friedbert Pflüger, former Secretary of State in the first government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Member of the Bundestag 1990-2006 and lecturer at King’s College in London, specializes in the subject of energy and climate policy. The Forum is an initiative of the business world with the participation of important political personalities and experts. Our goal is to provide a platform for discussion about how to deal with the challenges faced by the two countries – ensuring energy security, European climate policy, and the need to develop energy infrastructure.
The Polish and German energy policy may just as well be a field of confrontation and cooperation. It is only a matter of will and political imagination. If the parties demonstrate pragmatism and abandon the language of religious wars, they can be important partners for each other, both in terms of bilateral relations as well as in the European Union. The attitude of cooperation and finding common interests in areas, where it is possible, do not rule out differences in other matters. If both parties are guided by pragmatism, there is no reason for the differences on such issues as nuclear energy and shale gas to interfere with constructive cooperation in other areas.
The first Polish-German Energy Forum was held in Berlin on January 17th 2014 with the participation of Deputy Prime Minister Janusz Piechociński, Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and heads of key companies in the widely-understood energy sector in both countries. Participants of the Forum stressed the great need for such a forum for dialogue. During the event, the analysis “The Energy for Cooperation (Polish-German Cooperation Potential Analysis in the Energy Sector)” developed by Ambassador Janusz Reiter and Professor Friedbert Pflüger in collaboration with Tobias Adamczewskim and Arash Duero was presented. The purpose of this document is to provide areas for cooperation in the field of energy policy by providing a detailed analysis of the sector in both countries. The preparation of this publication and event was made possible thanks to the support of the Robert Bosch Foundation.
On May 26th 2014, the conference “Capacity market- solution for the future?” took place, organized by the Centre for International Relations in cooperation with the Warsaw office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. It was an invitation to a debate about whether and to what extent this mechanism is needed in Poland and what the status of the discussion on this topic is in other countries.
Representatives of Germany and France shared information on the progress of their work. Both France and Germany are in favor of a decentralized market model, where the stock market and new financial instruments are used. In contrast, Polish representatives tended rather towards a centralized model, where the main role is played by the operator of the network system.
The topic of the the European Commission’s temperance to introduce capacity markets, seeing this solution as a form of state aid.
A recurring question – under the title of the conference – was that of how much are capacity markets really needed, and to what extent other energy policy instruments can be used before we reach for this solution.