Llewellyn
King
Read Llewellyn's bio and previous columns
January 8, 2009
How Russia Coerces Europe
No building in Moscow
says “Soviet Union” so much as the headquarters of Gazprom, the Russian
gas monopoly. It is more foreboding than the Lubyanka, the former
headquarters and torture emporium of the KGB. The romantic charm of the
czarist era, epitomized by the Kremlin itself, is wholly absent. Like
the state monopoly itself, the structure is gigantic, threatening and
very hard to get into.
It is set back from the
road, and there are layers of security a visitor has to negotiate to see
an official. It is easier to get into the Kremlin, No. 10 Downing Street
or the White House than it is to get into Gazprom. I know, I have gotten
into all of them. No wonder that old KGB hand, Vladimir Putin, loves the
gas company.
As president, and now
as prime minister, Putin grew Gazprom and its oil counterpart, Rosneft,
not to be normal companies but agents of political implementation.
Between them, they were tasked to gobble up the pieces of Yukos when its
luckless founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was thrown in jail.
But even more than
Rosneft, it is Gazprom that has emerged as the right hand of Russian
policy in Europe.
At the moment, in the
dead of winter, it is Gazprom that has cut off supplies of gas to more
than 12 European countries. Ostensibly, the argument is over the price
paid for gas by Ukraine, the transshipper of gas to all of Europe.
But the Russian political agenda is not concealed. Putin and the
siloviki (the men of power around Putin and President Dimitry Medvedev)
are angered by the defiance of former members of the Soviet Union,
especially Ukraine. Despite its large Russian-speaking minority (about
40 percent) it has talked of joining NATO and the European Union – a red
rag to Russia. Russia is angry at the West, in general, for trying to
route new pipelines from Central Asia through Georgia, avoiding Russia.
It is also mad at the West for recognizing Kosovo, and has responded by
buying the Serbian gas fields.
Russian gas, which now
makes up 30 percent of Europe’s need, does not look like such a good
idea – particularly to Germany, where pressure from the Green Party led
to the retreat from nuclear and the push for gas turbines. Before
Germany turned its back on nuclear, it was a leader in the development
of promising pebble bed technology. Sadly, now it is nearly 40 percent
dependent on Russian gas.
The gas crisis is worst
in countries like Bulgaria, where there is very little gas storage and
demand is in real time. But it is also affecting Italy and southern
Europe. Having closed their coal-fired power plants and shelved their
nuclear plans, those countries now feel the full pain of the Russian
bear’s embrace – gas droughts and electric shortages are leaving their
populations cold and hungry in the dark.
So dependent has Europe
become on Russian energy that every step to ameliorate the situation is
a possible irritant to Moscow. If the pipelines bypass Russia, or the
hub in Ukraine, that is a provocation. If new gas comes by ship from
North Africa, that is an excuse for Russia to try to price its pipeline
gas at the higher price of liquefied natural gas.
Belatedly, Britain and
Finland commissioned new nuclear power plants. But Germany, whose former
chancellor Gerhard Schroeder took a lucrative job with Gazprom, has
chosen to increase its energy dependence on Russia.
Most observers believe
that the current crisis will not last. Most likely, it will conclude
with a jump in the price of gas, and some satisfaction in the Kremlin
that Europe has been taught a lesson. But that lesson may have to be
repeated over issues far from energy – such as the expansion of NATO and
the European Union.
While the Russians
appear to take some satisfaction in upsetting Western Europe, it is
their Soviet-era satellites that most annoy them. Why, they wonder,
can’t all of Eastern Europe remain suitably deferential, like Belarus
and Armenia? Both toady to Moscow.
For the rest of Europe,
the message is clear: Build more gas storage, arrange more imports and
diversify away from gas turbines.
For our part, we can
help our friends and allies by thinking through our own actions, from
the European missile shield to the willy-nilly expansion of NATO. This
is a European problem. But if Europe has to make geopolitical
compromises with Russia, it becomes problem for the Western alliance.
That is us.
© 2009 North Star
Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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