The bigger picture

28 September 2011 By Jason Bush

An anti-trust investigation into the Russian gas giant’s European subsidiaries should be seen in the context of a wider diplomatic conflict. Moscow is obstructing the EU’s plans to import Caspian gas. It looks like the EU has found a way to retaliate. The row could worsen.

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On Sept. 24, the European Commission said it had carried out raids in several European Union member states in central and eastern Europe to investigate firms involved in the supply, transmission and storage of natural gas.
Gazprom said the European anti-trust authorities had began checks into its subsidiaries in Germany, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. The Russian gas giant added that its supply contracts were “based on legal norms”, and that the Commission had not informed it about any claims.
The European Commission began negotiations this month with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan over a plan to the build the Trans-Caspian Pipeline linking the two countries. The unprecedented talks reflect the EC’s policy of playing a bigger role in external energy negotiations. The Caspian pipeline plan has been opposed by Russia, citing environmental concerns and ambiguity over the sea’s legal status.
At a speech in Cologne earlier this month, the EU’s energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger warned Russia not to obstruct the EU’s Southern Corridor of pipelines. Deutsche Welle reported Oettinger as saying: “If the Russians try to prevent the Southern Corridor either technically, by laying the South Stream pipeline, or politically, by putting pressure on Ashkhabad and Baku, then personally I would trust long-term contracts less, and believe less in the thesis that gas isn’t a political instrument.”

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