Russia's been in the news a lot recently, mostly over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian ex-KGB dissident granted political asylum in the UK. Before he died, Litvinenko squarely blamed agents acting for Putin's government. In response, Kremlin officials called the allegations "nonsense", and Putin himself warned against creating a political scandal, saying that the death was being used as a "provocation". Putin argued that nothing in the doctors' reports indicated an unnatural death, this being the day before doctors reported a major dose of polonium-210 as the cause of death. Polonium is incredibly difficult to get hold of, and very difficult to handle safely, so whoever is responsible had both a high level of support and access to materials usually only kept under high-security in a small number of nuclear facilities worldwide. The police in the UK are, of course, investigating the death, and British authorities have been speaking with the Russian ambassador.This comes at a tricky time, just before an EU-Russia summit that already faced severe difficulties stemming from Russia's embargo on Polishproduce. [That embargo is allegedly for safety reasons, but more likely a tool pressurising Poland into allowing Russian energy firms to buy gas companies and pipelines running through the country.] The embargo, and Russia's refusal to lift it, gave Poland cause to veto the start of talks on creating a successor to the 1997 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. In the only notable strengthening of the EU's stance on this issue, the EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, warned that Russia's impending ban on all EU meat, prompted by the accessions of Romania and Bulgaria, could jeopardise Russia's WTO bid next year.
At the same talks, Russia came down solidly against any break-up of Gazprom's monopoly in Russia as long as there's a disparity between local and global prices. As Russia's poor are not going to be able to afford gas at global prices any time soon, the timeframe here is indefinite. But of course - a break up of Gazprom, which is largely state-owned and which has been purchasing stakes in energy companies throughout the CIS and Europe, would limit Russia's power over its neighbours. In marked contrast, the EU announced plans to break up Europe's energy distribution market to foster competition.
As you can see, Russia has been taking a strong stance in its relations with the EU, while the EU has been fairly softly-spoken and has generally failed to act on Russia's human rights abuses, stifling of dissent, trade embargos on EU states and semi-imperial use of energy as a weapon. This may be due to the European's own perceptions of their weakness for Russian energy, gas in particular. But two articles this week counter that view. Firstly, in an opinion piece in the Times, Edward Lucas speaks out strongly for EU unity in response to Russian actions against members:
...[T]he West must stick together. Russia expertly plays off one country against another. British eurosceptics must drop their defeatist disdain for a common European foreign policy, especially in the field of energy security. Without it, we risk losing half the continent to the Kremlin’s new empire, one built on pipelines rather than tanks. Europe must dump its self-indulgent anti-Americanism and rebuild its alliance with an administration chastened and looking for friends.Secondly, in a widely unreported conference in Berlin, Roland Goetz of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs noted that while Europe depends on Russia for about 30% of its gas, Russia exports 80% of its gas to Europe. Moreover, the taxes from Gazprom make up a whopping 25% of the Russian government's tax revenue. Taking that into account, the EU could generally take a stronger line in all its dealings with Russia, as the Russians have a lot more to lose from any disruption in energy trade. Secondly, we can begin to understand just why Russia goes to the lengths it does with its neighbours (e.g. see here, and here) to keep control of its gas distribution to Europe: once the EU gains sufficient gas supplyies bypassing Russia, it can deal with the Russians without fear of energy-reprisals. That could mean a loss of revenue for Russia, but in this scenario the EU would probably continue to buy Russian gas, but would be strengthened by the ability to change suppliers in the event of disagreements with Russia. That's not something the Kremlin wants.That alliance’s big task will not be military defence, but diversifying energy supplies. We need new pipelines in the Balkans and the Caucasus to bring the oil and gas riches of the Caspian basin and Central Asia to European markets, bypassing Russia’s capricious, greedy and monopolistic oil and gas companies. We must also build more liquefied natural gas terminals, and interconnecting pipelines to hook up national gas grids. It sounds just as boring as the jargon of the last Cold War but it is just as important.
Similarly, we must give unflinching support to the countries in Russia’s viewfinder, such as Poland, Georgia and the Baltic states. They face hate campaigns in the Russian media, meddling in their energy supplies and arbitrary sanctions on their exports. All too often, the EU says that problems its new members have with Russia are “merely bilateral”. In future, the message must be: “If you mess with Estonia you mess with the whole of Europe.” These are brothers-in-arms and know a lot more about Russia than we do, and we have been slow to recognise it.
