Transatlantic Politics

The Bush administration is slowly recognizing that without Turkey’s full commitment and leadership, there cannot be any real perspective for peace in the Middle East. Yesterday, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and presented the new "Shared Vision" between the US and Turkey. The new policy suggest a stronger partnership, probably more lobbying in Brussels to get 2014 as an EU accession date, promoted already both by the Turkish government and business groups are already promoting as an accession target date. Energy transport and security is also a key-component in the US-Turkey relationship, and is becoming increasingly important to the EU.

Secretary Rice has instructed me to shift the focus of the U.S.-Turkey relationship from one of simply managing challenges to one where the United States and Turkey are working cooperatively to advance a broad range of issues, putting in action our shared interests and common values. Our shared interests include stability and freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan, democratic reform in the broader Middle East, energy security across Eurasia, and Turkey’s deeper anchoring in Europe.

On the energy security issue, the plan is to further invest in the already existing pipelines that link Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and expand this network to Europe, for instance through the Nabucco natural gas pipeline that would ultimately end in Austria (maybe that will melt down their anti-Turkish feelings a little bit) and the emerging Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline. There are also negotiations for gas exports from Iraq to Europe via Turkey.

As these natural gas projects develop, they will emerge as a Southern Corridor of infrastructure that will offer fair and transparent competition to Gazprom’s massive network of gas pipelines that is in place - and expanding - in Northern Europe. The Southern Corridor can change Eurasia’s strategic map by offering Europe its best hope for large volumes of natural gas supplies that will allow diversification away from a deepening reliance on one supplier or network. Turkey, if it continues to act as a partner with its neighbors, including by reaching a commercially attractive gas transit agreement with Azerbaijan, will be the centerpiece of this grand strategic effort.

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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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The small Baltic country Lithuania is teaming up with Poland in veto-ing an EU-Russia agreement that needs to be signed by the end of this year. Their request - to include tougher clauses on energy relations, so that politicized interruptions in gas and oil supplying are excluded in the future.
Russia refuses to sign an EU Energy Charta which would allow its energy market to open up to foreign investors. More so, Russian foreign minister Serghei Lavrov said EU’s new energy policy (developed by another Balte - the Latvian Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs) imposes “unacceptable” mechanisms for transit and investment. The key to the stalemate is of course Germany, who heads the EU presidency for this first half of 2007 and who has to keep the thin line between its own national interest (the direct pipeline being built from Russia under the Baltic Sea) and the EU interest - less dependency on Gazprom and the oil-pipeline Druzhba. The Poles and Lithuanians already have been imposed sanctions by the Kremlin, so Germany has to use its bigger negotiating power to obtain some compromise from Mr. Putin.

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