EU, Kazahkstan Pact Aims to Bypass Russia

In the European Union’s growing struggle to break Russia’s grip on the bloc’s gas imports, all roads are leading to Kazakhstan.

Today, the EU signs a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan on energy aimed at binding this vast country — which stretches from the Caspian Sea to China — closer to Europe.

Yesterday, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs signed an accord onnuclear cooperation, with a view toward increasing Kazakhstan’s share of uranium sales in the EU to 20% from 3%. Kazakhstan has one of the world’s largest uranium reserves. Last week, Mr. Piebalgs, a Latvian who speaks fluent Russian, attended an EU-inspired meeting in Kazakhstan of regional energy ministers that produced a road map toward integrating their countries’ energy grids and regulatory systems with the EU’s.

Yet in all this flurry of documents and initiatives, the thing Mr. Piebalgs and many EU countries want most — the construction of a gas pipeline across the Caspian Sea that would connect the gas-rich countries of Central Asia directly to Europe — isn’t mentioned.

Dow Jones Newswires