Belgium, the home country of useless bureaucracy (3 governments for each minority plus a federal one) and host of the EU capital city Brussels is just making a point on how much "old Europe" really gives about a common energy policy that would limit its dependency on Russian gas and oil. Instead, Belgium, just like Germany (famous for its former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder who now is on the Gazprom board of directors) prefers a direct deal with Russia and doesn’t waste too many thoughts on "the bigger picture".
Last week-end, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, along with top-energy investors and members of his cabinet payed a visit to the Kremlin and Gazprom. According to Russian news agencies, the delegation explicitly asked for Gazprom to select Belgium as a "hub" for the storage and transit of Russian gas in Western Europe. Mr. Verhofstadt said he would have “no objection if Gazprom should decide to acquire infrastructure from the Belgian gas distribution company Distrigaz. … We are structuring the market so as to avoid unhealthy monopolies. Liberalization and diversification are key today, and this does not depend on the presence or absence of Gazprom or any other company".
Funny thing, fighting "unhealthy monopolies" on the Belgian energy market through selling to STATE-OWNED GAS MONOPOLY GAZPROM! But then again, double language is the quintessence of Brussels, so why wouldn’t it apply to its energy policy?
UPDATE:
Wall Street billionaire George Soros, who in the past decades has been very active in former Soviet countries and Russia during the Yeltsin era speaks in an interview with the Financial Times about the need for solidarity in the EU facing Russia, an "emerging petrol superpower". Tell that to the Belgians!
I think we have to recognize that Russia is an emerging important petrol superpower that is using its natural resources as a way of re-establishing its power and influence in the world, maintaining the rulers of the Kremlin in power and also using the control over the pipelines to bribe the neighboring countries to submit their gas reserves to the control of Gazprom. So this is the reality and the Kremlin has become much more aggressive in this pursuit of policies than it had been when it was the centre of the Soviet Union because the Soviet Union consisted of bureaucrats who were risk averse. The people who are in power now, they are adventurers - that’s how they got there. And therefore they are prepared to follow adventurous policies.
So Europe, in particular, needs to get its act together and develop a unified front in negotiating with Russia because otherwise Russia has the monopoly power through its control of a sufficient portion of the gas supplies and is using that as a monopoly power."
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Mar 6th, 2007
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