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Need for Russian Gas Means Europe Has to Accept Russia’s Political Behavior — Experts

Created: 08.01.2006 13:34 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:24 MSK > document.write(get_ago(1136805872)); </SCRIPT> , 12 hours 30 minutes ago

MosNews

Europe needs to draw some lessons from the Russian-Ukrainian gas row, experts say. European countries must learn to live with Russia’s peculiar habits as a political and commercial partner, since there is still no alternative to the Russian gas.

“Europe has to recalibrate itself, not to the idea of a growing, democratic Russia, but to a Russia that is behaving according to its sense of its national interests,” New York Times quoted John C. Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany who is now a banker in Berlin, as saying. “It is not concerned about winning prizes in the West.”

There is plenty of evidence that Russia overplayed its hand and was humiliated when Europe forced it to turn the gas back on. Russia’s <NOBR>Vladimir Putin</NOBR> underestimated <NOBR>Ukraine</NOBR>’s leverage as the primary conduit for Russian gas exports to Europe, and Europe’s influence as the major consumer of Russian gas. He also misjudged how much his decision would erode the confidence Germany, France, Italy and other countries had in Russia’s trustworthiness as a supplier, the paper wrote.

But the new lessons for Europe mean that the European countries should expect Russia to put political spin on an economic policy and should be ready to resist, if necessary. Experts say Europe should feel free to link politics to its own economic bargaining — for example, prodding Russia on human rights or democracy as part of the price of remaining a customer. Lecturing Russia on the evils of using energy as a political weapon makes little sense, given that it derives so much of its hard currency from oil and gas, and Europe’s dependence is only likely to increase.

Europe can strengthen its hand by exploring how to curb its dependency, either by finding other gas suppliers or developing alternative fuel sources, the paper wrote. Germany is already talking about extending the life of nuclear plants. French president Jacques Chirac also said his country would build the prototype for a fourth generation of nuclear plants, in order to not use gasoline for trains by 2020. But such a strategy has limits. Nuclear plants supply only 14 percent of Europe’s energy, compared with 23 percent for gas, and the role of gas is expected to increase. Windmills, solar panels and the like are long-term solutions; for the foreseeable future, households from Munich to Milan will rely on Russian gas to ward off the winter cold.

Since Europe’s current relationship with Russia has been shaped in large part by Germany — it pioneered economic ties with Moscow during the cold war, and is by far the largest consumer of Russian gas — any new understanding between Russia and Europe will probably have to begin with Germany. “Germany had the idea that energy could be the guarantor of good relations,” the paper quoted Wolfgang Eichwede, an expert on Russia at the University of Bremen, as saying. “The lesson is that relations have to be not only reliable but balanced.” Last week, Germany’s economics minister, Michael Glos, raised questions about Russia’s dependability and said the time had come for Germany to explore other sources of energy.

While former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder cultivated a friendship with Putin and became the chairman of a Russian-German consortium that is building a $5 billion gas pipeline from Russia to Germany after leaving his office, the current chancellor Angela Merkel is considered to have no “romantic view” of Russia. The pipeline is regarded by some experts as either a shrewd way to avoid the complications of receiving Russian gas via middle countries like Ukraine or Poland, or a mistake that would make Germany even more dependent on Russia.

At the same time, few experts believe that Europe is in genuine danger of having Russia turn off the tap. The European market is too vital for Russia, and both sides have already invested too much in the plants and pipes that carry the gas. Managing the relationship is the issue.
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/01/08/europegas.shtml