542 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 4 / 2014 The recently launched association process seems a valid framework, with potential to develop into a real association. But, in order to be really meaningful, this association needs to develop towards some form of binding agreements around some very basic ideas. It should not be forgotten that, even if the IEA has been slowly evolving into a sort of big “think tank” and information provider in the energy field, its main “raison d’être” is still giving effective responses to oil disruptions. Therefore, the association process should reinforce the IEA capacity to contribute to energy security. In order to achieve this goal, it is essential that newly associated countries commit themselves not to act against IEA decisions relating to the IEA response system to oil disruptions. Far from being a merely declarative or unilateral commitment, this engagement should be the object of an international binding agreement. This agreement could be a protocol. A protocol is a legal instrument that supplements or amends an international treaty. It is relevant enough to include binding provisions, and flexible to permit tailor made solutions for different countries. The CERM was put in place through a much less important document, legally speaking: a Council resolution. But we should remember that in this case IEA members where already bound by the commitments in the framework of the Agreement on an International Energy Program, which was not at all the case with the new priority countries. Should this not happen, then the IEA and its new partner countries could simply be consolidate a sort of platform for the exchange of ideas and assessments, similar to the International Energy Forum based in Riyadh. It would be a useful, albeit limited, diplomatic platform. This would mean that the IEA and its new partners would keep their traditional good friendship, but nothing more than that. 3.2 How could the Energy Security Mechanism be preserved and what kind of difficulties the new stakeholders might face General mechanisms included in the CERM, having de facto replaced the more burdensome rapid reaction mechanisms of the seventies could be accepted by new partners, even on a compulsory basis. Countries like India, China or South Africa could feel reassured by the fact that, thanks to the consensus rule which is applicable to the CERM, they would always keep the last word on when and how it should be implemented. This could be an acceptable arrangement for countries like China and India, which seem to have a preference for less formal and non-binding relationships with non-IEA members. For a number of years, the IEA has already been working on the creation of big national stocks in some of the new key cooperation countries. Emergency Response
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