ROME: The European Union is increasing pressure on Washington to include an energy chapter in a planned trans-Atlantic trade deal that would allow US exports of natural gas and oil and reduce the bloc’s dependency on Russia.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s energy chief, said that easing flows of liquefied natural gas and crude oil from the US to the EU is one of the bloc’s goals for the trans-Atlantic trade and investment partnership, or TTIP, that is currently under negotiation. The US has so far resisted an energy chapter in TTIP, but the shale-gas boom in the US and the EU’s trouble with Russia have pushed the issue into focus.
“We believe that the energy chapter in TTIP…could make a quite important contribution to the mutually beneficial trade exchange, but also to the energy security of the EU,” Sefcovic said.
