PARIS, April 13 (UPI) -- A more liberalized energy sector in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is necessary for regional energy security, a report Monday from the IEA said.
The IEA published a 476-page report on the region's energy sector, stating that, while countries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are emerging as oil and gas powerhouses, their reserves are under "rigid" and mostly government control.
The European market relies in part on Russian natural reserves and many of those reserves run through Eastern European markets, where crises like Ukraine's expose vulnerabilities. Apart from Norway, the European community has looked outside of the region for a diverse source of energy.
"The EU's energy security increasingly depends on the production in and safe transit of energy goods through our neighboring countries," European Director of Energy Policy Mechthild Worsdorfer said in a statement Monday.
The IEA report was funded in part by the European Union. The report said countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia need to open their doors more to European markets as a way to promote sustainable development.
For its part, the EU said in a series of March reports on the region the development of a natural gas pipeline network from Azerbaijan is one of the most important aspects of bilateral ties. More than 500 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year is slated for exports from the Shah Deniz field off the coast of Azerbaijan to the European market through a network of 2,100 miles of pipelines by late 2018.
"In the long term intra- and inter-regional energy interconnections [oil, gas and electricity] can help overcome political tensions and create solidarity," Worsdorfer said.
The IEA's report calls on energy-rich countries in the region to enact sector reforms that ensure transparency and sustainability. Diversity, meanwhile, should come from interconnections with neighboring markets.
"Isolation and rigid thinking are not in the region's long-term best interest," IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said.
