Europe Heeds Its Gazprom ‘Wake-Up Call’

World leaders increased calls for reducing Europe’s dependency on gas supplies from Russia on Thursday as freezing temperatures forced cutbacks from Gazprom for the eighth day running and Russia continued to snipe at Ukraine, a vital transit country.

As political and business leaders gathered in Davos for the World Economic Forum, Poland’s prime minister and U.S. billionaire George Soros said the recent disruptions in gas supply meant Europe should find alternate sources.
Soros called Russia’s recent standoffs with Ukraine and Georgia over prices “a wake-up call for Europe” as Russia used its might to gain leverage over its neighbors, while Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said his country wanted to diversify supplies.

“Trust is measured on practice and the practice we have seen in January of this year was not promising,” Marcinkiewicz told reporters in Davos, Reuters reported. He said his country was now considering building a liquefied natural gas, or LNG, plant.

Moscow Times