euro|topics - Russian and Ukrainian tactics

Main focus of Friday, January 9, 2009

Russian and Ukrainian tactics

An agreement is in the offing in the gas dispute. Russia is willing to resume gas exports to Europe provided that EU observers monitor gas supplies to Ukraine. The European press comments on the two countries' tactics.

Cotidianul - Romania

The daily Cotidianul sees the gas dispute as a continuation of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's colonial policy. "When Ukraine resists the gas price imposed by the Russians it is left without gas. Europe is also being cut off from supplies and this cold treatment will be Moscow's trump card: Europe accepts that Russia's neighbouring states belong to Russia. The bilateral discord between Russia and Ukraine is nothing other than the concretisation of the Putin regime's colonial policy. Phase one in the summer: Georgia; phase two in the winter: Ukraine. The Putin-Gazprom operation is aimed at making sure that Ukraine and Georgia don't draw closer to the EU and Nato but remain under the sway of the Russian Gazprom empire. Russia is effectively stabilising the new eastern borders of the EU and exerting pressure to ensure a return to the artificial gas and oil prices on which underdeveloped economies are dependent. What's more, it is forcing Europe into energetic slavery." (09/01/2009)

Dziennik - Poland

Dziennik newspaper criticises Ukraine for having frittered away in the gas dispute the trust the West had placed in it. "Ukraine has missed the opportunity to leave the Russian sphere of influence and integrate into the West in the foreseeable future. The gas crisis has brought home to the EU and the US the worrying state of the Ukrainian economy and the chaotic political situation in the country. Clearly Ukraine has wasted the four years that have elapsed since the Orange Revolution. They have lost the sympathy they had built up in the West. 'As opposed to in the last gas war in 2006, today no one in Brussels has the intention of siding with Kiev in the confrontation with Moscow. The credibility of the political elites in Ukraine is at around zero', says Katinka Barysch, an expert at London's Centre for European Reform." (09/01/2009)

Süddeutsche Zeitung - Germany

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." (09/01/2009)

De Standaard - Belgium

According to De Standaard newspaper, the gas conflict highlights the problematic relations within Europe: "Since last summer and the Georgian campaign we know that Russia is no friend of moderation and will not tolerate being trifled with, even if it means creating international tensions. First come honour and the interests of the fatherland, and then other considerations. ... Once more we've learned that getting along with the irritable Russian bear is no picnic. Europe is being brutally confronted with the consequences of its most recent enlargement. The Union stretches to the mouth of the Danube, but like it or not the countries in this region are inextricably tied to Moscow. This creates a common destiny which many Europeans are not aware of. If you look at a map Europe looks like a slim appendage of the Russian giant. As soon as this reality is also reflected in economic and political power relations, we'll all be out in the cold." (09/01/2009)

» To the complete press review of Friday, January 9, 2009

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