Mr. Cillian O'Donoghue:

I will speak about each country separately. Norway is part of the internal energy market. It is part of the EEA. Norway is fully integrated with our structure, although it is not an EU member state. The UK is not. This is an important difference. We have a very close working relationship with Norway. The country is our second biggest supplier of gas and we are discussing with it bilaterally the reduction of gas prices. Norway is also a very important battery for European electricity. The country has a huge amount of hydropower which acts as a battery or as a reserve. In southern Norway, electricity prices are very high at present. Normally, what would be done is that some of that hydropower would be released to alleviate the price increases in the south of the country. However, the Norwegians are not releasing this hydropower because they are using it as a storage for this coming winter. Norway is playing a very important role in European electricity security. There were some internal discussions in Norway with some parties saying that the country should not be exporting to the UK and Europe and that they should have electricity at lower cost. However, the general consensus among politicians was that the country was fully part of the market and had an important role to play in electricity security.

Regarding the UK, co-operation is now much better. We have offshore sea co-operation where the UK was excluded for a short time but now it is back in and co-operation is very good. It is very important regarding energy that we treat the UK as a full member of the Internal Market even though it is not. On the supply risk from the UK to Ireland, I have to be careful what I say here. That is a political judgment. By and large, Northern Ireland and Ireland are one single energy market so I cannot see any incentive from the UK side to cut off or reduce supplies to Ireland. However, I am not an expert on that situation and someone else would be a better judge, but from my understanding, it should be pretty secure.