All Events

Countries from Central and Southern Asia have agreed to use the Energy Charter framework as a means to intensify and develop cross-border electricity trade.

This was the result of a high-level workshop on Electricity Cooperation in Central and Southern Asia, which was organised by the Energy Charter Secretariat together with the Ministry of Energy, Industry and Fuel Resources and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, with financial support from the Government of Norway.

At the meeting...

On 20 November 2006, the 17th Meeting of the Energy Charter Conference took place in Brussels, Belgium.

Putting the global energy economy on a secure and sustainable path of development will require renewed efforts from governments and international organisations. This was a key message from a high-level Conference, organised jointly by the Energy Charter Secretariat, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on 25 October 2006 in Brussels, on the role of governments and international organisations in promoting energy security .

"Oil and gas pipelines are the arteries of the global energy economy. Putting new pipeline infrastructure in place requires extensive cooperation between states and with investors, and the Energy Charter is looking to contribute a transparent, balanced and neutral starting point for negotiations on new projects", said André Mernier, the Secretary General of the Energy Charter Secretariat, at the opening of a two-day expert workshop on 17-18 October 2006 in Brussels.

A follow-up meeting to 'Brussels workshop on providing reliable gas transit' of 19 May 2006 was organised in Bratislava in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic on 27 September 2006, on the eve of the Annual Conference of Gas Infrastructure Europe, the association representing gas transmission companies, storage system operators and LNG terminal operators in Europe. This workshop brought together government and industry experts from across the Energy Charter...

The rapid growth of international trade in natural gas is highlighting the importance of mechanisms that can ensure the reliability of cross-border energy flows. Such mechanisms are particularly important for gas supply to Europe, where existing and planned pipeline routes often cross multiple national borders on their way from producer to consumer.

Removing barriers to trade in electricity has been a feature of the work of the Energy Charter, and the Energy Charter Secretariat organised on 16 May 2006 a roundtable meeting on cooperation, which aimed to analyse the costs and benefits of greater interconnection and discussed the instruments that could be needed to foster increased cross-border trade. The discussion was based on a series of regional examples from Southeast Europe, the Caucasus and from Central Asia, and served as guidance for...

On 9 December 2005, the 16th Meeting of the Energy Charter Conference took place in Brussels, Belgium.

The global energy market faces new risks in an era of strong demand, tight capacity and high prices, and these risks - and the appropriate responses to them - were the subject of a major Conference organised in Brussels by the Energy Charter Secretariat in cooperation with the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Opening the Conference, the Energy Charter Secretary General Dr. Ria Kemper underlined that meeting future global energy requirements will require massive long-term investment in energy...

Following on from the successful Conference on Investment Arbitration and the Energy Charter Treaty, which took place in Stockholm in June 2005, the Energy Charter Secretariat organised a workshop on 20 October 2005 in Brussels for representatives of member and observer states on the dispute settlement mechanisms of the Energy Charter Treaty.

The Government of Belarus and the Energy Charter Secretariat held a workshop in Minsk on 22 June 2005 to examine the role of the Energy Charter Treaty.

Treaty-based investment arbitration is becoming increasingly important in international commerce; the vast majority of such investment cases were filed within the past three years, and the issues associated with investment arbitration are therefore of growing interest not only to governments but also to the business and legal communities. Within this overall picture, the Energy Charter Treaty occupies a singular position, providing a unique multilateral investment protection regime for the...

Ashgabat, 2-3 March 2005

Presentations and materials from the event can be found below.

On 14 December 2004, the 15th Meeting of the Energy Charter Conference took place in Brussels, Belgium.

This Expert Meeting, which was chaired by Mr Steivan Defilla, was a follow-up to previous discussions in the Group on Trade on the compatibility of various policies and measures that aim at promoting the use of renewable energy with the provisions of the trade rules of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The objective of the Expert Meeting held on 2 November 2004 in Brussels was to establish a policy dialogue between officials dealing with trade, energy and...