A dangerous policy of alliances

The daily Süddeutsche Zeitung writes that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's policy of alliances poses a threat to Europe's unity. "Not lofty words but a concrete and growing dependency on gas as a raw material unites the member states. Russia's Europe is being packaged together through a network of pipelines. This mesh of pipes stretches across the entire continent and like an arrow diagram can be mapped out and studied as a system of interdependencies and interactions. ... Russia wants to prevent the EU from closing ranks and presenting itself as a monolithic buyer to the gas supplier from the East. Putin wants to prevent a shift in the current power structures between suppliers and (solvent) customers that would be to Russia's disadvantage. Therefore Moscow is using a splintered customer structure that has only one goal: the gas must flow."

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