A more liberalized energy sector in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is necessary for regional energy security, a report Monday from the IEA said. The IEA published a 476-page report on the region’s energy sector, stating that, while countries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are emerging as oil and gas powerhouses, their reserves are under “rigid” and mostly government control. The European market relies in part on Russian natural reserves and many of those reserves run through Eastern European markets, where crises like Ukraine’s expose vulnerabilities. Apart from Norway, the European community has looked outside of the region for a diverse source of energy. “The EU’s energy security increasingly depends on the production in and safe transit of energy goods through our neighboring […]