an energy security strategy for San Marino
The increase in bills is a problem that is affecting many countries, especially those that import raw materials and energy, such as Italy and San Marino. The situation is not – as some would have us believe – dictated by an unlikely sadism of the government, but by the rise in costs, net of any administrative errors in the management of purchases, which must certainly be ascertained. This being the case, the alternatives to the increases are either the rationing of energy resources (i.e. if you buy a smaller quantity while keeping the expense unchanged) or the intervention of the State to make the difference, but taking the money from the same subjects who pay bills, ie citizens and businesses. The causes, on a general level, are varied and complex. From a strictly financial point of view, the growth is due to an increase in demand greater than that of the supply of energy. The following factors should be analyzed politically:
1) Increase in demand due to post-lockdown recovery, growth localized in particular in China;
2) Increase in taxes on CO2 emissions;
3) Russian reluctance to increase export quotas to Europeans. The choice, in itself uneconomic, has as its tactical objective the pressure on Europeans for the definitive opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which – from the Baltic – connects Russia and Germany, thus marginalizing the Ukrainian gas pipelines, an important revenue and a factor of relevance for the government of Kiev;
More generally, for some years the stability depends on the main proximity scenarios from which the Italian energy security, and consequently that of San Marino: Mediteranno East and North Africa (about 20% of Italian gas) with the Libya – where a real state no longer exists and civil war is raging – from which 5% of imported gas comes and Russia, currently in sharp contrast with NATO countries, especially on the Ukrainian front. This being the case, it appears unavoidable for San Marino to prepare a medium-long term energy policy, in order to guarantee our energy security and to do so at economically and politically sustainable prices through a – at least partial, but significant – decoupling from supplies and from the agreements with the Italian side. In the short term, however, it appears realistically complex, imagining interventions other than special protections for the poorest sections of the population. We do not have the power to affect the instability scenarios in the operational theaters described above, nor do we possess natural resources. Given these hypotheses for granted, it is necessary to ask ourselves what to do. The massive American and European investments in energy from renewable sources, in my opinion, should mark the high road for San Marino as well. In this context, the Republic has a very significant structural advantage and disadvantage: on the one hand our energy needs are, in absolute terms, Lilliputian, but – mutatis mutandis – proportionally also our Territory, devoid of natural resources, and this excludes large structures such as nuclear power plants. In my opinion, the way is to purchase “clean” energy infrastructures outside the Republic (wind farms, photovoltaics or other) that can guarantee our electricity needs at a low price, and possibly a surplus to be resold to other states, so to pay back investments quickly. The infrastructures and therefore are committed to friendly states that must not have local interests (where our interests are opposed), therefore politically stable and protect in a state of right of foreign investments. Furthermore, it is also necessary that the countries through which the energy will then have to transit have similar characteristics, at least in terms of political stability. The major energy advantages from important sources: political, i.e. dependence on the Italian neighbor and the improvement of the image of San Marino as the first state powered by sources, and economic, which would materialize in earnings for the State Company and renewable bills low for families and businesses, making San Marino structurally more attractive for productive investments not only from a fiscal point of view, but also from an energy point of view.
cs Giovanni M. Zonzini, independent director in the NETWORK