Energy dispute
Since the end of 2005, the European media have been referring to the increasingly fierce price wars between Russia and the former Soviet republics on its border, which have hitherto been purchasing natural gas at very discounted rates, as an energy dispute , in special cases also gas dispute or natural gas dispute . These republics are strongly opposed to the transition to the market-based prices that Russia has long been demanding from the WTO and the EU . The fact that these republics are mostly important transit countries for the transport of crude oil or natural gas to Western Europe and throw this position into the negotiation scale with blockade threats and unauthorized taps adds an additional edge to these disputes .
The following energy conflicts between Russia and the neighboring republics were particularly intense:
- The Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute reached its peak in January 2009 when the Russian energy company Gazprom stopped delivering gas to Ukraine and via Ukraine to Europe. Alexander Medvedev, the Deputy Head of Gazprom, accuses Ukrainian trading partners of stealing gas. The dispute arose earlier in 2005, when Gazprom canceled the gas subsidies granted to Ukraine and thus doubled the price of natural gas for Ukraine . At that time Western Europe was also affected by temporary supply bottlenecks, especially when a longer cold spell would have required increased gas deliveries. Russia has not yet ratified the Energy Charter negotiated against such cases in 1994 . In the course of 2006, Ukraines new government under the pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych avoided another dispute and this time reached an early agreement with Gazprom on the price for 2007: 130 dollars (100 euros) for 1,000 m³ of gas is 40% more than in 2006 , but only half the price of gas that Russia charges other former Soviet republics.
- In December 2006, the gas dispute between Gazprom and Belarus culminated , for which instead of around 50 dollars per 1000 m³ (relatively cheap) was now demanded 105 dollars. At the same time, Russia's neighboring state to the west was supposed to transfer 50% of the shares in the natural gas distribution system to the energy company. At the beginning of January Belarus agreed to a gas price of $ 100, but in turn demanded a transit tax for the transmission of energy sources to the West. Russia refused and its operating company Transneft temporarily closed the important oil pipeline Friendship on January 9, 2007 - which particularly affected Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
- Price disputes to a lesser extent also arise with two other oil suppliers to the former Soviet Union - with the Central Asian states of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan . At the end of 2006, the small Tajikistan and its utility company Tajikgaz had to agree to an almost doubled price for natural gas from Uzbekistan; the relevant market volume in 2007 will total 700 million cubic meters of gas for 70 million dollars ($ 100 per 1000 m³). Uzbekistan is the third largest supplier of natural gas to the former Soviet Union after Russia and Turkmenistan.
Such price disputes regularly intensify towards the end of the year and have so far mostly been triggered by greatly increased price demands by Russia on its eastern and southern neighboring countries, which, as former Soviet republics, have so far been supplied at relatively low energy prices. The conflicts at the end of 2005 and 2006 raised concerns about the reliability of Russian and Siberian oil and gas supplies in the western half of Europe too , because Moscow coupled them with threats of delivery boycotts and ultimatums .
The repetition of similar supply and pricing disputes forces the EU in the medium term to become a common energy policy towards Eastern Europe to come together. In 2006, u. a. Germany took appropriate steps, which were only partially successful. These efforts are to be stepped up during the EU Presidency in the first half of 2007, but will be hampered by other economic disputes between Poland and Russia that overshadowed the EU-Russia summit in November 2006.
On the other hand, with the planned Nabucco pipeline , for example , which would enable a connection to the Caspian Sea , which is rich in natural resources , other natural gas suppliers are to be made accessible to the EU by bypassing Russia. However, the start of construction is delayed again and again, the completion of the first section is therefore not expected until 2017 at the earliest, and Iran and Iraq would then also be possible suppliers. Another method is the Nord Stream Pipeline , also known as the Baltic Sea Pipeline , which is already under construction . It will connect Germany directly to Russia via the Baltic Sea as early as 2012. Because the current transit states would avoid transit fees and their importance in Russia's energy policy would decrease sharply, they are vehemently against the project.
See also
literature
Manfred Sapper / Volker Weichsel (eds.): View into the tube. Europe's energy policy on the test bench . Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-8305-1615-6 .