Turkey's Relations and Energy Cooperation with the BSEC.

• Author: Yilmaz-Bozkus, Remziye
• Position: ARTICLE

Introduction

Turkey has one of the largest energy markets in Europe. The significant growth in its economy population, urbanization, and industrialization has recently caused a rapid increase in the energy demand of the country. The average annual increase rate in its energy need since 1990 is 4.6 percent. (1) The annual energy need of the country is envisaged to double in 10 years and to grow annually by 4.5 percent until 2030. (2) Since the country does not have sufficient domestic energy resources to meet its energy demand, it has to import around 75 percent of its energy requirements. Turkey needs to import around 98 percent and 90 percent of its gas and oil supplies, respectively. Although some volatility has been seen in the oil and gas imports parallel to the economic growth of the country, Turkey's oil and gas imports have been increasing.

In 2016, Turkeys total gas imports were 46,352 million cubic meters (Mcm), originating from Russia (52.94 percent), Iran (16.62 percent), Azerbaijan (13.98 percent), and other countries (16.45 percent). (3) On the other hand, the country imported 40,064 million tons of petroleum in the same year, mainly from Iraq (23.09 percent), Russia (19.38 percent), Iran (17.32 percent), and other suppliers (40.21 percent). (4) These numbers indicate that Turkey is highly dependent on Russia and Iran to meet its energy need.

Turkey's external oil and natural gas strategy seeks to meet the increasing energy demand of the country, reduce its high reliance on a few suppliers, and turn the country into an energy hub between energy producing countries and European markets in order to enhance the significance of the country as a transit corridor in energy geopolitics. Turkey tries to adopt an effective energy strategy in order to achieve these targets. In this regard, Turkey conducts an increasingly active energy diplomacy and augments its participation in regional and international (energy) organizations.

There are numerous academic studies on Turkey's energy strategy and bilateral energy relations. These studies notably increased after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of new sovereign energy producing countries in the Caspian Sea, because these developments increased the possibility of importing energy resources of these new states to Turkey and to Europe via the Turkish territory. The existing academic studies emphasize that Turkey's energy security concerns have increased as its energy need and imports have been growing. (5) They also highlight the fact that Turkey has emerged as an important energy transit country, especially for European consumers and Caspian energy (6) Besides, the majority of the existing academic studies on Turkey also analyze bilateral energy relationships between Turkey and its energy partners such as Russia, (7) Iran, (8) and Central Asian countries. (9) These studies point out a growing energy cooperation between Turkey and these suppliers. However, there are surprisingly no academic studies that analyze energy relations between Turkey and international (energy) institutions. Yet, the exploration of these relations is necessary in order to comprehensively apprehend some behaviors of the country in energy geopolitics as analyzing only its energy strategy and bilateral energy ties would not provide us with the complete picture of Turkey's role and importance in global energy politics. Hence, this paper seeks to contribute to filling in this important gap in the academic literature through analyzing Ankara's energy relations with the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). Considering the fact that the energy issue was one of the main drivers for Turkey to initiate the establishment of the BSEC in 1992 due the growing energy need of the country, the paper chose this organization. In this regard, it tries to understand what kind of energy relations Turkey has developed with the BSEC, how the BSEC contributes to the Turkish energy sector, to which degree and how Ankara supports energy activities of the BSEC, and to which extent energy issues stay as priority for Turkey in its ties with this organization.

The paper addresses the subject in five steps. Firstly, it briefly gives background information about the BSEC. Secondly, it analyzes Turkey's role and the extent of its participation in the BSEC. Thirdly, it covers the role and activities of the BSEC in the field of energy. Fourthly, it scrutinizes energy ties between Ankara and the BSEC. Finally, it concludes with an overview and assessment of the findings and provides a number of recommendations.

The BSEC

The BSEC covers a geography including the territories of the Black Sea littoral states, the Balkans, and the Caucasus with an area of about 20 million square kilometres, represents a region of 335 million people, and reaches an intra-BSEC trade volume of $187 billion per year. (10) The organization was established by heads of states/governments of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine in Istanbul in 1992. Its emergence was seen as a turning point in the regional cooperation process, signifying the first coherent indication of collaboration in the Black Sea region, which encouraged the regional players to integrate further. (11) The BSEC is a political and economic initiative, which seeks to foster the interaction among its members and assure peace, stability, prosperity, and good-neighborly relations in the Black Sea region. (12) Owing to the establishment of the BSEC, the countries, which considered each other as rival due to the historical factors, obtained the opportunity of coming together to take a step in the process of economic collaboration. (13) The BSEC "creed" was directed by the notion that effective economic collaboration would also provide for growing mutual trust and wealth, which in turn, would augment the potential for political partnership. Thus, despite mainly economic area of activity, the BSEC also obtained a major political significance, coming to address and handle hard sensitive security matters. (14)

Agriculture, banking and finance, combating organized crime, culture, customs matters, education, energy, environmental protection, healthcare, information and communication technologies, SMEs, tourism, trade, economic development, and transport are among the main areas of collaboration within the BSEC. The structure of the organization includes the Parliamentary Assembly, a Council of Foreign Ministers, a Permanent Secretariat, an International Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS), and a Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB).

However, member states have until now concluded only a couple of mandatory deals and common sectoral action plans in the framework of the BSEC and in areas that originally lay outside its major focus. The organization is frequently criticized for lacking effectiveness and efficiency. The current decision making process, where the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs is the main decision making authority for almost all subjects, has proven to be cumbersome and time-consuming. (15) The decision-making procedure, which requires unanimity for all significant decisions, causes the BSEC to be a very uneasy format for regional collaboration, considering disputes and conflicts among BSEC members. (16) In addition, the perceived weakness in the work of the BSEC institutional structures may occasionally be attributed to the low level of interest shown by national officials of member countries toward the organization. What is more, the Committee of Senior Officials, which frequently functions as a preventing factor to new proposals, is given an extreme weight of competences. The international secretariat of the organization, which has an unbelievably small number of professionals, does not have the necessary right to take initiatives and to carry out independent analyses, assessments and estimations. The BSEC has limited financial resources at its disposal. (17) Additionally, the non-existence of an operational mechanism to observe the implementation of intergovernmental conventions, as well as of the resolutions, decisions, and recommendations adopted by the BSEC Council of Ministers seriously influences the efficacy of the BSEC, with negative consequences on its prestige and visibility (18) Moreover, the BSEC's functioning shows the particular difficulties that its member states encounter, such as economic problems and little financial resources, security difficulties, and problems regarding state building. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of member states with regards to their size, economic development, security anxieties, and foreign policy preferences has therefore blurred the identity of the BSEC and the sense of common goals. This has also frequently led it to 'paralysis. (19) It is a sad fact that member states frequently have incompatible interests and even clashing ones. This gives an explanation of their dissimilar anxieties, preferences, and stances, causing unclearly worded statements, resolutions, decisions, and recommendations that are eventually adopted, but sadly are equivalent to empty words of little result. (20)

Turkey and the BSEC

The BSEC was established with the initiation of Turkey's...