ARMENIAN AND REGIONAL ENERGETIC PROCESSES IN THE CONTEXT OF INFORMATION SUPPORT
Karen Karapetyan
"Noravank" Foundation
16 February 2009
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 =0 Aprojects.
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=2 0foregoing 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 th e 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 for20boosting 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
=0 Aalso 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.