Building an Energy Policy Management Institution for the South Caucasus

From the 10th until the 13th of November in Reichenau an der Rax, Austria, our Research and Management Coordinator Sonja Risteska took part in the 14th Workshop of the PfP Consortium Study Group "Regional Stability in South Caucasus" together with the Working group "Security sector reform" on the topic "Building an Energy Policy Management Institution for the South Caucasus."

The PfPC's Regional Security in the South Caucasus Study Group actively seeks to foster stability in the region, as well as international security, through facilitating conflict resolution dialogue among diverse parties. The activities of the group serve to advise broader conflict resolution activities, such as the Geneva Talks. The group pursues its goals by focusing on the following areas:

1. Ensuring multinational participation, building on experts from all dimensions of the security-political spectrum of the three core countries Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia: This is paralleled by bringing in experts on international security and regional stability issues from the main partner countries and institutions to the region, namely the European Union (Member States), the Russian Federation, Turkey, the United States, as well as NATO, the OSCE and the UN.

2. Building a constructive network of academic and policy-making influence: This includes involving civil society, international security organizations, think-tanks and defense institutions in the group's work.

3. Encouraging an alteration of the conflicting narrative in the region in order to progress conflict negotiation.

The event in Reichenau is a multinational conference aimed at setting up an regional energy security mechanism which will deal with South Caucasus energy matters. The working groups tried to come up with a structure, ToR and develop an idea how this Energy Policy management for the South Caucasus will look like.

BUILDING AN ENERGY SECURITY MANAGEMENT INSTITUTION FOR THE SOUTH CAUCASUS