Foreign Briefing

Published on Monday 5 January 2009 21:05

RUSSIA'S decision to turn off the gas to Ukraine on New Year's Day has added an extra chill to the icy weather that has left much of Europe shivering.

This is not because the flow of Russian gas will suddenly cease, and fires and cookers will refuse to light. While many countries in Central and Southern Europe have experienced disruption to their supplies, this should be only temporary, say the experts, as countries use their reserves to make up the difference.

The chilling factor for Europe is that the Russian energy giant Gazprom, by cutting the supply to Ukraine, has demonstrated just how dependent on Russian energy the West has become. If a dispute between two eastern European countries can affect supplies, what then would be the implications for the West if Russia, for whatever reason, cut supplies to the European Union, or one state in the EU?

Russia accounts for some 50 per cent of the EU's gas supplies, and that figure rises to close to 100 per cent in the bloc's eastern countries such as Slovakia. Even Britain receives 2 per cent of its supplies from Gazprom and this is expected to rise to 10-15 per cent in the next few years.

This, in theory, gives Moscow huge political leverage and influence. If something is not to the Kremlin's liking, especially in central and eastern Europe – Russia's traditional stamping ground – it could threaten to turn off the taps. To do this would harm Russia, as nobody likes an unreliable supplier and, of course, it needs the revenue from energy supplies, but so far Russia seems prepared to risk that if the goals are worth it.

Both Latvia and Lithuania have experienced cuts to their energy supplies in the past that have been attributed to Moscow making a blunt point. This has made other states in Moscow's traditional sphere of influence increasingly anxious.

The anxieties felt in Warsaw, Talin and Bratislava have been exacerbated by what they see as the EU's foot-dragging on creating a common energy policy. Although Europe started in 2007 to move towards a unified approach to energy under which the EU would negotiate with one voice rather than individual states striking bilateral agreements, to the EU's eastern members it hasn't gone far enough. They fear they could be next in the Kremlin's energy cross-hairs, and, without collective solidarity, they could suffer the same fate as Ukraine.