The ceremony followed years of debate with Poland and the Baltic states seeing Nord Stream as a potential tool for Russia to cut off gas to its former satellites while keeping it flowing through the new pipeline to western Europe. Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski once compared Nord Stream to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact signed in 1939 between Russia and Germany to partition Poland…
Russian President Medvedev, the German European Commissioner for Energy Oettinger, Netherlands’ Prime-Minister Balkenende and French secretary of state Idrac attended the ceremony in Vyborg, Russia. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, took part by videolink. The officials represented the main Nord Stream shareholders in a consortium which is dominated by Russian Gazprom (51%) and also includes the Netherlands’ Gasunie and Germany’s BASF and E.ON. French GDF Suez will join soon.
Wasn’t it Commission’s President Barroso, who told us in 2009, when the Russians cut of the Ukrainian transit pipeline, that gas coming from Russia is not secure? In 2010 however the European Commission sees Nord Stream as an EU ‘priority’ project that in 2012 will supply an annually 55 billion cubic meters of gas.
Russian News Agency Itar-Tass brought the news that the Austrian government is ready to sign a deal over participation in South Stream, a Russian pipeline that from 2015 onward 65 billion cubic meter of gas a year will deliver to Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia and Austria. This pipeline will reduce the viability of EU efforts to build a competing one, Nabucco, to avoid Russia and to gain directly gas from the Caspian Sea area. And last but not least, the new pro-Russian government in Ukraine signed a deal with EU and Russia to help avoid gas delivery cut-offs as in 2006 and 2009.
The future will teach us how Russian giant Gazprom, that supplies 25% of EU gas consumption, plays the ‘game’. Some of its activities could be against the market liberalisation the EU stands for. But it is evident that the recent developments in the gas market are strengthening Russia’s grip on EU gas supply, despite concerns about its reliability.
Even Pipelines give the Blues
The day before the Polish President, his wife and dozens of top Polish political and military leaders died in a plane crash, Russian and EU officials marked the start of the construction of Nord Stream gas pipeline: a first chunk of 48-inch-diameter steel pipe was laid on the Baltic Sea bed.
Wasn’t it Commission’s President Barroso, who told us in 2009, when the Russians cut of the Ukrainian transit pipeline, that gas coming from Russia is not secure? In 2010 however the European Commission sees Nord Stream as an EU ‘priority’ project that in 2012 will supply an annually 55 billion cubic meters of gas.
