EU schrapt subsidie Nabucco-pijpleiding

De Nabucco-pijpleiding is vooralsnog geschrapt van een EU-projectenlijst voor grote Europese subsidies. De beoogde financiering voor de gaspijp werd eerder al verlaagd van 250 tot 200 miljoen euro.
De aanleg van de Nabucco-pijpleiding via Turkije naar de EU i stuit op tegenstand van bijna de helft van de lidstaten, zo bleek dinsdag. Vooral Oost-Europese landen willen zo geld vrijmaken voor energieprojecten binnen hun eigen grenzen. Voornaamste tegenstander Duitsland heeft bezwaar tegen de publieke financiering voor private projecten. Het land zou liever zien dat de controversiële pijplijn tussen Rusland en Duitsland, de 'North Stream' op de lijst met gefinancierde projecten komt.
De aanleg van de Nabucco, die wordt gecoördineerd door de Haagse burgemeester Jozias van Aartsen i, beoogt de EU minder afhankelijk te maken van Russische gasleveranties door import vanuit de Kaspische regio. Azerbeidzjan wordt als grootste leverancier gezien. De pijplijn zou in 2014 in gebruik moeten worden genomen.
Het project stuit op problemen door de aarzeling bij de private geldschieters en door de oorlog tussen Rusland en Georgië in augustus 2008. Een obstakel is ook de concurrerende South Stream, die wordt gesteund door het Russische Gazprom. Verscheidene lidstaten van de EU hebben al getekend voor de South Stream, wat hun belang en betrokkenheid bij Nabucco in twijfel trekt.
De Europese Commissie i verklaarde dat de Nabucco pijplijn nog steeds gefinancierd kan worden onder het aangepaste plan. ,,Het feit dat we de naam hebben veranderd, betekent niet dat het hele project van de baan is'', zei de woordvoerder van de commissie.

Source: Europa NU

Rusland noodzakelijk om Nabucco te laten functioneren?

At last week’s Nabucco summit, the European Union took decisive steps by pledging the firmest possible political support for the project, in order to disperse any doubts that its intention to build a pipeline whose sole purpose is to supply Europe with non-Russian gas is indeed real. This week, the story took an unexpected turn. The Director of the Nabucco project Reinhard Mitschek said that the Nabucco consortium was open to Russia’s participation, and was ready to negotiate.

Russia has been working on its own pipeline dubbed South Stream, which targets Italy and Austria, while Nabucco is supposed to run from Turkey to Austria. The two are perceived as rivals, and the Russian leadership has on more than one occasion voiced concerns over the feasibility and viability of Nabucco, as the consortium comprises only transit countries, and not a single producer. This could be the main reason why Russia came into the picture. The Nabucco pipeline was conceived in 2002 and strongly backed by the United States as a means to free Europe from excessive Russian influence, since Russia has been the source of almost half of the gas the EU consumed.
Central Asian countries have been considered the key producers which could provide the 30 billion cubic meters necessary to fill Nabucco and diversify Europe’s energy supplies. Turkmenistan’s and Kazakhstan’s having participated in last week’s summit was seen as a positive signal that both countries were ready to cooperate. [cfr. EU puts energy hopes into Turkmenistan 'black hole'] The Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that his country is prepared to double gas production in order to participate in Nabucco. At the same time, he pointed out the need for transit contracts with EU countries, as well as funding and a clarification of the EU’s energy policy.
The two other possible alternatives are Iran and the U.S.-backed Iraq. The former would hardly provide Europe with more energy security than Russia does, while the latter is still a very distant possibility.
Gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan is already exported to Europe, but it goes via Russia, which imports it and then resells it to consumers.

In any case, Russia and Iran are going to have leverage in the project, since both are members of the Caspian treaty and their approval would be necessary to lay pipelines across the Caspian Sea.

Turkey would be a key transit country for Nabucco, and this could also be a problem. The country, which is aspiring to EU membership, could be tempted to use the pipeline as a bargaining chip to speed up its integration with the union.

Russia could make significant gains from scrapping South Stream and turning to Nabucco instead. The two pipelines have been seen as rivals, and the Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek called South Stream a “direct threat” to Nabucco. The pipelines are going to have the same capacity, and both are scheduled to begin operating in 2013. However, it has been estimated that South Stream could end up costing twice as much as the $8 billion Nabucco. Acting as a major or even the sole gas producer could also help Russia to retain its influence over Europe, marking for a significant gain on the political side.

Source: Russia Profile

Gasconflict Rusland-Oekraïne

Rusland en Oekraïne maakten dit weekend een einde aan hun gasruzie. Volgens de nieuwe overeenkomst krijgt Oekraïne dit jaar een korting van 20 procent op de gasprijs die andere Europese landen betalen. In ruil daarvoor moet het de tarieven voor de doorvoer van gas naar de rest van Europa op hetzelfde niveau houden als in 2008.
Ongeveer 80% van het Russische gas, 120 miljard kubieke meters per jaar, wordt geëxporteerd naar Europa. Alternatieve routes door Polen en de Blauwe Stroom-pijplijn via Turkije kunnen slechts 50 miljard kubieke meters per jaar aan. De Nordstream pijplijn naar Duitsland via de Baltische Zee wordt pas in 2011 voltooid en zal slechts 16 miljard kubieke meters per jaar kunnen vervoeren.
Oekraïne heeft zich in 1991 onafhankelijk van Rusland verklaard, maar heeft tot op de dag van vandaag nog nooit de ‘Europese gasprijs’ moeten betalen. De gasruzie van de laatste weken lijkt meer en meer op een post-Soviet conflict over identiteit, territorium en macht. Andreas Umland geeft in zijn artikel ‘Is the EU becoming an instrument of Moscow’s neo-colonialism?’ een overzicht van de relaties tussen Oekraïne en Rusland.

At no time before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has Ukraine been an independent state. During most of its history, much or all of Ukrainian territory was controlled from Moscow – whether by the Tsars or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union secretaries. Kiev is the cradle of all three of the Eastern Slavic nations: Ukrainians, Belarusians and Great Russians. As many of the latter perceive Ukraine as a part of Russia and the West as anti-Russian, they observe Ukrainian-Western rapprochement with suspicion, if not hostility. Russian elites see Ukraine as lying within their legitimate sphere of interests, and deny Kiev full sovereignty. The Ukrainian elites seek sustainable independence above all from Russia, and a way for Ukraine into the European Union.

De laatste jaren zijn Rusland en Oekraïne meer en meer afhankelijk van elkaar geworden.

Whereas Ukraine is dependent on Russian gas and oil, Russia depends on Ukraine’s cooperation in the transportation of its energy resources to its major clients in the EU. This created a healthy balance in Russian-Ukrainian relations. For instance, Moscow might have been interested in using its influence among the population of Crimea to broach the issue of the peninsula’s separation from Ukraine, following the model of Russian support for separatism in the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But until recently, Kiev would have retaliated against any such attempts by way of threatening to suspend gas deliveries from Russia to the West.

Door het arriveren van EU waarnemers, wordt die wederzijdse afhankelijkheid afgezwakt. Hoe het ook zij, beide partijen komen gehavend uit het conflict en beiden hebben de belangen van de Europese Unie naast zich neer gelegd. Vooral Oekraïne heeft zich nogmaals ontpopt als een onbetrouwbare handelspartner en geen geschikte kandidaat om toe te treden tot de Europese Unie of NATO. Opmerkelijk vond ik de perceptie van Oekraïne in het westen. Waar tijdens de gascrisis van 2006 Oekraïne gezien werd als de ‘moedige natie die geterroriseerd wordt door de grote Russische beer’ was dit ditmaal anders. Misschien betekent dit wel een verandering in de (overwegend negatieve) berichtgeving over Rusland?

Het conflict
Vladimir Frolov geeft in ‘The pipe is blocked in Kiev’ een overzicht van het gasconflict:
On October 2008, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko had a nice fire-side chat with Putin at his dacha near Moscow. During the conversation the two reached a strategic deal that envisioned a comfortable gas price for Ukraine for 2009 and beyond (we now can surmise that the offer was around a reasonable $250 per cubic meter) in exchange for Gazprom’s acquisition of a 50% stake in the Ukrainian gas transportation system (along the lines of a similar agreement with Belarus) and Gazprom’s right to directly supply gas to (and collect payments from) Ukrainian customers.
Timoshenko, for her part sought to cut out the middleman – Rosukrenergo (RUE), an international trading company registered in the Swiss canton of Zug, half-owned directly by Gazprom and half owned by a group of shadowy Ukrainian businessmen led by Dmitro Firtash. Timoshenko got Moscow to agree that all future gas contracts will be signed directly between Gazprom and Naftogaz (controlled by Timoshenko’s allies), thus eliminating Rosukrenergo and costing Firtash billions of dollars.
Firtash, however, is a major sponsor of the Party of Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovich. Ukrainian media reports also have alleged that Firtash has been providing black cash payments to President Viktor Yushchenko’s political campaigns and allegedly has Yushchenko’s Secretariat on his payroll. There have also been rumors in Kiev that some of Yushchenko’s closest relatives might have been beneficiaries in RUE.
Firtash is a direct opponent and business rival of Yulia Timoshenko and her team as he and his allies in Yushchenko’s closest circle stand to lose their lucrative business. Firtash is rumored to have helped scuttle the deal between Timoshenko and Yanukovich in December 2008 to form a constitutional majority coalition in the Rada that would have adopted the constitutional reform to abolish the popular vote for the President and make him elected by Parliament. Such a scenario would have been a complete disaster for Yushchenko and his cronies.
President Yushchenko and his situational ally Viktor Yanukovich hated to see Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko reach a gas deal with Moscow at a reasonably good price of $250. This would have strengthened Timoshenko politically and would make her bid for the Presidency in 2010 a lot easier. Neither Yushchenko nor Yanukovich wanted that to happen, so they rushed to block Timoshenko’s efforts to repay Ukrainian debts to Gazprom for 2008 (valued at over $2 billion) and thus scuttled the deal.

Bron: www.russiaprofile.org
Zie ook: http://russland.ru/gasstreit/index.php

Gazprom builds largest underground natural gas reservoir in The Netherlands

Gazprom and four other international energy companies will build Europe’s largest underground natural gas reservoir in The Netherlands at the exhausted Bergermeer field. Construction will begin in the second quarter of next year, after the necessary designs are completed and permits are received. TAQA (Abu Dhabi National Energy Co.) and Gazprom Export will reach a final agreement by that time.
The Dutch state EBN and private DYAS and Petro-Canada will also take part in the project. Their shares in the project will be determined in the coming months, said TAQA Europa representative Allan Virtanen. He said the usable capacity of the reservoir will be 4.1 billion cu. m. and will be launched in the second quarter of 2013. The new reservoir will be strategic for Gazprom because of it lies on the path of the Nord Stream pipeline, now under construction, and because of its proximity to the Zeerbruge hub. The first section of Nord Stream, connecting the Baltic shore of Russia with Germany, will be ready in 2011. Then the pipeline will be extended from Greifswald, Germany, through The Netherlands to Becton, Great Britain. Analysts note that the construction of the reservoir will expand sales opportunities for Gazprom without requiring additional investment in production or transportation. It will also lessen the risk of supply interruption and reduce seasonal factors.
Source: Kommersant

Russia as an island of stability

It is now official – the Russian economy is in recession. Have Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev mishandled the crisis? Have they responded inadequately to the challenges facing the country? What could the Russian government have done differently? What impact will the deteriorating economic situation have on Russian politics? How will the crisis affect Russia’s foreign policy and its relations with major powers and neighbors? Will the West be able and willing to help Russia, or will Russia seek help from OPEC and China?
It now appears that the Russian leadership has been slow to understand the true impact of the international financial crisis on the Russian economy. All the way through November it had tried to portray the crisis as a U.S.-manufactured phenomenon that had nothing to do with Russia, and that the country would remain “an island of stability.” The government is now at a crossroads – having privatized the political dividends from the rising oil prices in 2000-2008, it is now forced to admit that the rising living standards of the past eight years have more to do with high oil prices than with the able management of Russia’s economy, which remained commodities-driven.

Vlad Ivanenko comments that Russia is likely to use the crisis to expand its sphere of influence in the near abroad. [...] Using the ruble as the price unit in state-sponsored trade credit lines will increase its role as regional reserve currency. Moreover, the crisis can push previously reluctant neighbors to form a regional trade union with Russia at the helm.
Secondly, a better delineation of state and private sector responsibilities will emerge. [...] I treat this development as a correction of excesses associated with the wild privatization of the 1990s. Using public funds, the state reaffirms its role in defining strategic national objectives, but leaves the day-to-day operations in the hands of private managers.
Finally, potential development of a brand-new economic system – prompted by the crisis – in this country cannot be excluded.

Ethan S. Burger adds that economic crime should be dealt with in the same way violent crime is. [...] Credible efforts to combat corruption and effective regulatory and law enforcement are needed to restore the businesses' and the citizens' faith in government. The criminal justice system and judiciary must inspire confidence in the population.

Andrei P. Tsygankov questions the economic model developed under Vladimir Putin. This model assumed stability of high oil prices, which allowed the state and private energy corporations to be more assertive abroad, including by borrowing from foreign banks. Rather than becoming an opportunity to diversify the economy, expansion of energy production and contracts slowed down such diversification. Although at the time it made sense to exploit energy as a comparative advantage, the sharp decline of oil prices requires a principally different course. Given the continued uncertainty in the global markets, the Russian government faces difficult choices ahead.

It is important to keep things in perspective. Russia’s fundamentals are not ideal, but they are not bad either, and can still serve as a basis for economic recovery. If the oil prices do not fall below $30 a barrel and the United States begins to recover within the next year, Russia is likely to feel the difference and will get back on its feet within a few years following the United States. Russia’s recession is very serious, but in relative terms, it is still possible not to make it much worse than that experienced by Western economies.

Professor Stephen Blank ends the discussion with a political note. To a large degree, this crisis validates many of the Western (and domestic) criticisms of Putin's economic and political policies that were built on a castle of oil, which is no more substantial than sand. Reforms and a much lower profile in world politics while Russia recovered and developed meaningful economic capabilities, not unlike China, was and remains the way to go. But that means decisively breaking with the neo-Muscovite and patrimonial model and moving toward a genuine market economy and pluralism, if not democracy in politics. The response to date has been the wrong one, pointing toward more state control and monitoring from above, as Frolov points out. Not only does this bring the country closer to fascism, without losing its neo-Tsarist and neo-Soviet attributes, but it also ensures that the country will pursue a great power status that is unattainable, and will crash at some future date in a major international crisis that will be of its making to a considerable degree.

Samenwerking EU, VS en Rusland

The Obama Administration should present a united front with Europe, because division within the West invites Russia to assert itself. It must also find ways to address Russia's perception of the last twenty years as a continual humiliation. Above all, in shaping its policies, it should draw on the lesson of the EU itself: The recipe for this part of Europe in the 21st Century is inclusion. Deze stelling wordt verdedigd door Jim O'Brien - voormalig presidentieel gezant in de Balkan - en Alexandros Yannis - gastdocent aan de Fletcher School en tot voor kort actief in het buitenlands beleid van de EU voor de Balkan en de Kaukasus. Ze stellen in "EU and US should co-operate with Russia" vier facetten van samenwerking voor:

The need to build an inclusive security architecture. Russia is concerned about its southern border and has resorted to 19th Century sphere-of-influence rhetoric and tactics. Such a formulation must be opposed resolutely. [...] The best alternative is to reshape security relations between US, EU and Russia along a political and security architecture which can accommodate the interests of all three actors in the direction of a security community that fully involves Russia as an equal partner and builds enduring trust. [...] Turkey's latest proposal for a Caucasus Stability and Co-operation Platform could be useful as a basis for bringing together the necessary voices in the Caucasus. The success of another local initiative, the Southeast European Co-operation Process, could provide additional inspiration for a stability pact of a wider geographical scope.

Daarnaast pleiten de auteurs voor 'meer Europa' in het oosten door bijvoorbeeld reizen naar Europa te vergemakkelijken, meer vrije handelperspectieven te creeëren en meer politieke en financiële bijstand te bieden.

More Europe in the east should not lead to new divisions. The EU and Russia must conclude soon the new EU-Russia agreement, which will replace the current Partnership and Co-operation Agreement. More Europe in Russia - with greater interaction and joint perspectives - should be actively pursued with Russia too.

Verder moet werk gemaakt worden van alternatieve energieroutes.

Europe's energy dependence on Russia weakens its political latitude. [...] The aggressive geopolitics of some hawks in the Kremlin must be opposed, but their domestic rivals also need to be enticed. [...] It should be possible to develop diverse routes, including routes that avoid Russian territory, but that allow all the players, including Russia, to invest and receive benefits. It may be possible to engage Russian companies in the ownership structure of non-Russian pipeline and transportation infrastructure. With a minority stake, they would have an interest in seeing the routes run efficiently, but not the ability to disrupt operations.

Ten laatste moeten instellingen opgezet worden die die samenwerking stimuleren.

President Sarkozy has proposed a "Joint Economic Community" between the EU and Russia. If the US were to be invited, it could prove the first step towards a genuine strategic partnership between the EU, the US and Russia. The Black Sea region has great potential for a politics of inclusion as well. This includes EU and NATO members, Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus. The EU's Black Sea Synergy is a good but hesitant start. It must become more political and build common institutions.

Wie is bang voor Oost-Europa?

De National Intelligence Council (NIC) publiceerde deze week haar global trend review waarin voorspeld wordt hoe de wereld er over een 15-tal jaar zal uitzien. Toch enkele verrassende uitspraken:

By 2025, the European Union will be a "hobbled giant" crippled by internal bickering and a eurosceptic citizenry. Eastern European organised crime could dominate one or more member state governments, and the bloc will likely be kowtowing to Moscow after having failed at all attempts to wean itself from Russian energy supplies.

"Europe will remain heavily dependent on Russia for energy in 2025, despite efforts to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy and lower greenhouse gas emissions." Deze afhankelijkheid "will foster constant attentiveness to Moscow's interests by key countries, including Germany and Italy, who see Russia as a reliable supplier" en zou de unie in gevaar kunnen brengen "if Russian firms are unable to full fill contract commitments because of underinvestment in their natural gas fields or if growing corruption and organised criminal involvement in the Eurasian energy sector spill over to infect Western business interests." "Crime could be the gravest threat inside Europe as Eurasian transnational organisations - flush from involvement in energy and mineral concerns - become more powerful and broaden their scope." Een van de lidstaten zou zelfs ingenomen kunnen worden door een van de nieuwe wereldmachten. "One or more governments in eastern or central Europe could fall prey to their domination."