EU member states have become increasingly dependent on Russian oil. Moreover, their industries are seeing the agreements signed during the Yeltsin years being called into question . . . and the price they have to pay for the opportunities they once dreamed of is increasing as well. On the other hand Russia is now deriving significant financial and strategic advantage from its oil. Claiming protection of its own interests, it wants to impose its control over extraction and its monopoly of transport while also profiting from the opening up of European markets to establish itself there. The resulting strategies seem a priori incompatible.
Russia-EU: in Search of an Energy Strategy
‘We’re going to make a killing out of this’, a French banker confided in December 1991, when the USSR had just announced the suspension of repayment of its external debts. This arrogant affirmation reflected the hopes shared by a good many Europeans: to be able to negotiate from strength to obtain free access to Russian natural resources, starting with oil.
What are the results, today, of those energy plans implemented across the Eurasian continent? We must first examine the European community’s energy situation, and in particular its dependence on Russia, and then the strategy of the European Union (EU). Then we will look at Russia’s energy strategy.
Growing Energy Dependence
First, a look at the situation in the context of commercial exchanges between the two parties.(1) Russia has become the EU’s number three trading partner after the United States and China. From 1999 to 2005 the EU’s trade deficit with Russia has multiplied by a factor of 2.85. Energy supplies represent two-thirds of the Community’s imports from this country.(2) During those years, the value of the EU’s energy deficit with Russia, in constant euros, multiplied by a factor of 4.
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