The New Threat To Europe

This year began with a European energy crisis caused by Russia’s cutoff of gas supplies to Ukraine, where a democratic government not to the liking of Vladimir Putin had taken power. Because Russian gas passes through Ukraine on its way to Western Europe, the pressure also dropped in Paris and Vienna and Rome — and Europeans suddenly realized they were dependent for electricity and warmth on an autocracy that was prepared to use energy as a tool of imperialism.

It looks like the year will end the same way. Georgia and Azerbaijan, two other Russian neighbors that have chosen not to kowtow to Putin, are scrambling to find gas supplies by Jan. 1 to make up for Russian cutbacks or to avoid a huge and predatory price increase. So, oddly, is Belarus, which until now has been a Kremlin client — but which has resisted a Russian demand that it turn over ownership of a key gas transit pipeline. Western energy companies that have invested in Russia are meanwhile reeling from a crude campaign of bullying designed to force them to give up majority stakes in oil and gas fields to Kremlin-controlled companies. Shell has already caved, allowing Gazprom to take a 50 percent stake in a huge offshore gas field.

It would be nice to report that in the intervening months Western governments have taken steps to ensure that Russia, which supplies anywhere between 30 and 100 percent of the gas consumed by European Union countries as well as much of their oil, is not able to use this leverage for political or economic extortion. Sadly, the opposite is true: Though “energy security” has become a favorite topic for discussion at E.U. and transatlantic summits, next to nothing has been done about it.

That’s partly because solutions aren’t easy. Weakening Russia’s hold over European energy supplies requires measures that would be costly and difficult, such as building new terminals for importing liquefied natural gas or new pipelines to carry oil and gas from Central Asia and the Caucasus to Europe.

Washington Post