This week we met to discuss further work on the working paper. We also conducted a call with the client in order to streamline the direction of the report and the presentation. For this we will thoroughly revise our draft to meet our partner institution expectations.

Regarding the deliverables. Given the length of the final draft have agreed to do executive summaries for each sections. We discussed the approach to take into picturing different scenarios and debated whether to focus them on the actual execution and development of the project as well as the interest of the parties involved or in a narrow scope that only focuses on the european gas market.

We discussed about the availability of academic resources and industry report that have origin in the V4 countries and Russia and agreed to do an ex-post assessment of the challenges of finding reliable information to address the issue.

We also conducted an interview with an advisor on energy matters to the European Commission to have an more detailed insight into the position Commission regarding NS2 and the general trends in Europe’s energy policy

Specifically, we asked what were the implications of the amendment to the Gas Directive and what where the next steps and the likelihood of NS2 to be finished. To this the reply was that despite the regulatory chapter closed the industrial and geopolitical factors are still very much in play. Despite this, the more likely scenario is still that the pipeline is finished but that Denmark

And the threat of US sanctions still pose a threat to the project.

Regarding Ukraine, the view is that Russia simply cannot afford to cut off their current gas delivery system and that the EU countries against NS2 will we very worried about further russian aggression.

In terms of what NS2 will mean for the EU gas market the adviser assessment is that there has been a lot interconnection and this will continue in the future. The EU supports the Baltic Pipeline project and overall market integration is making progress. Moreover, with the regulatory framework, security of supply insured and solidarity principle there should be no reason for conflict among EU members.

When it comes to the future EU-Russia relationship the analysis is that gas will be a minor factor overall as renewables increase and gas becomes less important and it should also be noted that Russia also plays in the european coal and nuclear market.

We have agreed to meet on the weekend to work on the following points:

• Review report and discuss overall direction and format

• Add visualizations

• Discuss possible scenarios

• Do presentation summaries done

• Re-organize the report

• Draft presentation