There is war in Europe. It’s been 70 years since there has been one. It is not a geopolitical disruption. It has upended decades of work, rules, and thought on energy and economic security. In the words of Mario Draghi, the former PM and Head of ECB “Europe cannot be competitive if we pay three times more for electricity than in the United States and five to six times more for natural gas than in other areas of the world.” He even threw salt on the wound, “The three pillars the EU has relied on — energy from Russia, exports from China and the U.S. defense apparatus — are no longer as solid as before, and on the green and digital transitions alone the EU would have to spend €500 billion a year.” Unfortunately, he fails to point out and it must be stated clearly that the only way forward to return to stability can be achieved by having 1) revert to having cheaper energy 2) build an army and 3) obtain non-Chinese exports/imports.

Energy is one of the main economic inputs. It affects competitiveness of an economy and subsequently the ability of the economy to build an army and compete against non-EU economies, non-friendly economies, more specifically China if we follow the advice of Draghi. Unfortunately, Draghi fails to take the leap and continues to list climate change as an issue that needs to be dealt with now rather than the EU losing competitiveness and Ukraine losing the war. Can the EU get cheap electricity/energy by continuing to fight “climate change” while there is a war in Europe? Can it produce cheap and good quality food if farmers are faced with punitive emissions targets?

Germany has rightly been blamed for being exposed to Russia for over 60% of its natural gas supplies yet we fail to acknowledge that for solar, wind and batteries the exposure to China is over 95%. Is the EU about to make the same mistake by exposing itself by over 90% to China for renewable energy raw materials? In fact, for some of the materials used in batteries the domination of China is close to 100%. Africa is the other place to look for such materials, yet Wagner has recently paid a visit to several countries in that continent.

Albania sources almost all its electricity from renewable sources. In fact, it can double its installed capacity of electricity generation from hydro only. When adding solar and wind, that capacity could probably triple and could be able to do so by respecting sustainable uses of land and water. While there are limited studies on pumped storage a rough estimate would put the potential installed capacity at quadruple the current one. At such a level Albania alone could provide clean renewable electricity to Macedonia and Kosovo. Yet national energy strategies are developed mostly locally with little regional coordination. The Energy Strategy of Albania goes only as far as coupling with the market of Kosovo.

Under the current geopolitical and economic situation in the world, a more regional approach should be taken to ensure energy security of supply and most importantly cheap energy for all of Europe so that it can initially help Ukraine win the war and then go back to its renewable energy targets. The countries of Southeastern Europe (SEE) are contracting parties to the Energy Community Treaty; hence they will be treated in this energy security of supply analysis as if they were EU members.