The Future of Baltic Energy Security

Tuesday, September 25, 2018
10:00 A.M.–3:15 P.M.

University Club
Second Floor Conference Room
1135 Sixteenth Street, NW
Washington DC

FULL EVENT VIDEO BELOW

*For copies of the presentation slides from the conference, please click on the PDF links below:

Tomasz Stępień – GAZ-SYSTEM – presentation

About the Event

On September 25, The Jamestown Foundation held a conference on energy security in the wider Baltic region. The event addressed the challenge to European security posed by Russia’s Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline project as well as discussed Northern Gate, an alternative energy transit corridor championed by Poland that will open up the region to Norwegian gas supplies and U.S. and international LNG shipments, blunting Gazprom’s market monopoly position.

In addition to bringing together some of the leading experts on this issue from Europe and the United States, the conference featured a keynote speech by Secretary of State Piotr Naimski, a Member of the Polish Sejm and the Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. Other key speakers included Colin Cleary, the Director for Energy Diplomacy for Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Africa, at the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Matthew Bryza, as well as CEOs of the Polish energy companies PERN and Gaz-System, Tomasz Stępień and Igor Wasilewski, respectively.

Agenda

Registration
9:30 A.M.–10:00 A.M.

* * *

Welcome
10:00 A.M.

Glen E. Howard
President, The Jamestown Foundation

* * *

Panel Discussion: Energy Supply and its Geopolitics in the Baltic

10:10 A.M.–11:45 A.M.

“Germany’s Nord Stream Dilemmas: Economics and Politics”

Vladimir Socor

Senior Fellow, The Jamestown Foundation

“Russia and Nord Stream Two: The Effects on Baltic Security”

Margarita Assenova

Director of Programs for the Balkans, Caucasus & Central Asia,

The Jamestown Foundation

“Defining the Role of the United States”

Matthew Bryza

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia

* * *

Lunch

11:45 A.M.–12:30 P.M.

* * *

Keynote Address

12:30 P.M.—1:40 P.M.

Piotr Naimski

Secretary of State in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland, and

Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure

Colin Cleary

Director for Energy Diplomacy for Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Africa, Bureau of Energy Resources, U.S. Department of State

Andrea Waldman Lockwood

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa, Middle East, Europe and Eurasia, Office of International Affairs, U.S. Department of Energy

Commentator: Edward Lucas

Senior Vice President, Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)

Moderator: Matthew Bryza

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia

* * *

Coffee Break

1:45 P.M.–2:00 P.M.

* * *

Presentation: “The Baltic Pipe Project: Poland’s Energy Strategy in the Baltic Region”

2:00 P.M.–2:45 P.M.

Tomasz Stępień

CEO, GAZ-SYSTEM, S.A. Poland

Moderator: Matthew Czekaj

Program Associate for Europe and Eurasia, The Jamestown Foundation

* * *

Closing Remarks

2:45 P.M.–3:15 P.M.

“The Role of Oil in Regional Energy Security”

Igor Wasilewski

CEO, PERN, S.A. Poland

* * *

Conclusion

3:15 P.M.

Participant Biographies

Margarita Assenova

Margarita Assenova is Director of Programs for the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia at The Jamestown Foundation. She is a regular contributor to the Jamestown publication Eurasia Daily Monitor on political and energy security developments in the Balkans and Central Asia. She is also the Chair (contract) of Southeast Central Europe Area Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State. Assenova is a recipient of the John Knight Professional Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University for her reporting on nationalism in the Balkans. Her articles appeared in U.S. and European newspapers, magazines, and online publications. Assenova authored book chapters and journal articles on security, energy, and democracy published by CSIS Press, Brassey’s, Freedom House, Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, and University of New Haven. She has delivered presentations and papers to conferences and panels in the U.S., UK, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Israel, Germany, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

Matthew Bryza

Ambassador Matthew Bryza is a member of the board of the Jamestown Foundation. He is the former director of the International Center for Defense Studies in Tallinn, Estonia. He completed a 23-year career as a U.S. diplomat, over half of which was spent at the center of policy-making and international negotiations on major energy infrastructure projects and regional conflicts in Eurasia. His most recent assignment was as U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan from February 2011 to January 2012. Between 2005 and 2009, Bryza served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, with responsibility for Eurasian Energy, the South Caucasus, Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. Bryza simultaneously served as the U.S. Co-Chair of the OSCE’s Minsk Group mediating the Karabakh conflict, and as U.S. mediator of the Cyprus, South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts.

From 2001 to 2005, Bryza served in the White House as Director for European and Eurasian Affairs on the National Security Council Staff. His responsibilities included Eurasian energy, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and political Islam in Eurasia. Previous assignments include Deputy to the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Caspian Energy, Advisor on Economic Reform in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and Russia Desk Officer at the State Department, as well as Political Officer at the U.S. Missions to Russia (1995–97) and Poland (1989–91). Currently, Ambassador Bryza resides in Istanbul, Turkey, where he also works as a consultant on business and democratic development and is a board member of several private companies.

Colin Cleary

Colin Cleary serves as Director for Energy Diplomacy for Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Africa in the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources. From 2016 to 2018, he represented the State Department as Chair of an interagency body charged with identifying intelligence gaps. Mr. Cleary served as Political Counselor at U.S. Embassy Kyiv and Science Counselor at U.S. Embassy Moscow. Other Embassy assignments include Madrid, Warsaw, Kampala and Mexico City. Mr. Cleary has been a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown.

Matthew Czekaj

Matthew Czekaj is a Program Associate for Europe and Eurasia at The Jamestown Foundation and also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Jamestown’s daily publication, the Eurasia Daily Monitor. Prior to joining Jamestown, Mr. Czekaj was a Research Associate at the Atlantic Council, where he worked on issues of European Enlargement. Before that, he was a Research Assistant at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) Energy Security Program. Mr. Czekaj holds a Master’s degree in Russian and East European Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations with a concentration in European Studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Andrea Waldman Lockwood

Andrea Waldman Lockwood is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Africa, Middle East, Europe and Eurasia in the Office of International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy.

As Deputy Assistant Secretary, Andrea directs the analytical work covering the Eurasia land mass (including Russia, the Baltics and the Ukraine), Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East (including Turkey), Europe and Africa; and directs the IA representational activities with regard to this portfolio, bilaterally, multilaterally and in conjunction, where appropriate, with other U.S. government agencies. Her responsibilities also include designing, developing, and recommending specific energy policies related to global markets (including investment and trade), energy technology and operational programs. Ms. Lockwood is charged with managing the Office of European and Eurasian Affairs (IA-21) and the Office of African and Middle Eastern Affairs (IA-22) and serves as the policy link between the Assistant Secretary and staff and program offices to implement Administration policy. The Deputy Assistant Secretary, or her staff, represents IA in interagency deliberations on those issues within its purview.

Andrea Lockwood comes to this position with 31 years of experience at the Department of Energy, where she has also served as Deputy Director for Americas Policy, Senior Advisor to the Secretary for Africa Policy and lead analyst for the Middle East, Central Asia, and the UK and Norway. Ms. Lockwood holds an AB degree from Bowdoin College and an MPP from Harvard University.

Edward Lucas

Edward Lucas is a Senior Vice President at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He was formerly a senior editor at The Economist. Lucas has covered Central and Eastern European affairs since 1986, writing, broadcasting, and speaking on the politics, economics, and security of the region. A graduate of the London School of Economics and long-serving foreign correspondent in Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, and the Baltic states, he is an internationally recognized expert on espionage, subversion, the use and abuse of history, energy security and information warfare. He is the author of four books: The New Cold War (2008, newly revised and republished); Deception (2011); The Snowden Operation (2014), and Cyberphobia (2015). His website is edwardlucas.com and he tweets as @edwardlucas.

Piotr Naimski

Piotr Naimski is the Secretary of State in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland as well as the Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure. He is a Polish politician, academic teacher, opposition activist during the Communist era in Poland, a publicist, former deputy minister of economy, and a member of the Sejm (lower chamber of parliament during the VII and VIII terms. In 2015, he was named Secretary of Statein the Prime Minister’s Chancellery and the Government’s Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure.

Vladimir Socor

Vladimir Socor is a Senior Fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation and its flagship publication, Eurasia Daily Monitor (1995 to present), where he writes analytical articles on a daily basis. An internationally recognized expert on former Soviet-ruled countries in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, he covers Russian and Western policies there, focusing on energy policies, regional security issues, secessionist conflicts, and NATO policies and programs.

Mr. Socor is a frequent speaker at U.S. and European policy conferences and think-tank institutions. He is a regular guest lecturer at the NATO Defense College and at Harvard University’s National Security Program’s Black Sea Program (Kennedy School of Government). He is also a frequent contributor to edited volumes. Mr. Socor was previously an analyst with the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute (1983–1994). He is a Romanian-born citizen of the United States based in Munich, Germany.

Tomasz Stępień

Tomasz Stępień is an experienced manager with a successful track-record in the energy sector. He is the CEO of GAZ-SYSTEM since December 2015.

He has worked in various positions in GAZ-SYSTEM since 2008. He was responsible for coordination of the construction of the Świnoujście LNG terminal and supervision of Polskie LNG (GAZ-SYSTEM’s SPV). He also managed the Department for Analysis, where he was actively involved in the development of GAZ-SYSTEM’s strategy. Then, he was appointed as a Project Manager for the underground gas storage development.

In the period of 2007-2008 he worked in PGNIG, where he was responsible for major diversification projects such as LNG terminal in Świnoujście and Baltic Pipe.

In 2005-2007 Mr. Stępień was Deputy Director of the Department for Energy Supply Diversification at the Ministry of Economy, where he was responsible for the development Polish Government’s policies for oil and gas sector. In parallel, he supervised the implementation of the above strategic documents by the market participants. On behalf of the Ministry of Economy, he participated in the development of the 2007-2013 Operational Programme of the Infrastructure and Environment in the area of energy security. He was a member of the Supervisory Boards of Nafta Polska (Vice Chairman) and of BSiPG Gazoprojekt.

Mr. Stępień is a graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.

Igor Wasilewski

Igor Wasilewski is the CEO of PERN, S.A., and an effective manager with over 20 years of experience in the energy industry. A graduate of Warsaw University of Technology, University of Warsaw and Warsaw School of Economics, he has an MBA Diploma from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and has participated in many international training seminars (Germany, France, England, Italy). Mr. Wasilewski held management positions at GPEC (2010–2015), GAZ-SYSTEM (2006–2009, 2004–2006), PGNiG (1998–2004), and PSE (2010). He created and successfully implemented business strategies that significantly boosted financial results, optimized the operational functioning of the companies, launched investment programs (PLNG), changed the organizational culture of the companies (MBO, coaching, mentoring, job rotation) implemented advanced IT technologies (FFA, ERP, GIS, Workflow , Scada, billing), centralized the structure of the capital groups, introduced new products to the market, as well as oriented the operation of the companies to the needs of customers.