Demanded by Russia to agree to resume its gas deliveries to Europe—accounting for 40% of the imports of the 27 member states and 19% of their total consumption—the presence of observers at the Russian gas transit points on Ukrainian territory enabled the conclusion of a very precarious agreement between the European Union with Moscow and then Kiev. This story significantly tarnishes the image of the Russian giant Gazprom: with this “company” controlling over 95% of natural gas production in Russia, which has been predominantly state-owned since 2005, and furthermore, with the state having strengthened the monopoly of its exports by a law of June 16, 2006, it is questionable how EU officials could argue that it was a “conflict between two private entrepreneurs” to initially refuse to intervene in the dispute between Kiev and Moscow. The issue of supply security was already on the agenda at the Russia-European Union summit on November 4, 2005, where Europe “welcomed a strengthening of its energy partnership” with Russia: the first gas conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the winter of 2005, and the subsequent one of similar nature between Moscow and Minsk in December 2006, partially lifted a blindness that was vehemently criticized at the time.
A recent Senate report expresses concern about “Russia’s ability to honor its commitments to the European Union in terms of hydrocarbon supply, in light of rising domestic consumption and a lack of investment in exploration and exploitation structures.” Indeed, no new gas fields have been put into operation in Russia for the past 20 years. For its part, the European Commission estimates that the Russian energy sector needs $735 billion in investments by 2030, half of which is just for the gas sector. Investments that the economic crisis makes highly uncertain. And not just for financial reasons. As the Director of “Middle East” of Total explained in September 2005 during a study day organized by the Foundation for Strategic Research: “The reason we do not invest more is that we are at the maximum of our non-financial capacities, but… technical and human ones.” The signing on July 13, 2007, of an agreement between the French “Major” and Gazprom to explore the Shtokman gas field, located in the Barents Sea – 600 km from the coast and at a depth of 300 meters in often frozen waters – illustrates this technological challenge. It should be noted that Russia aims only to increase this European dependency with the “North Stream” gas pipeline, which will directly connect Russia to Germany in 2010 – much to the dismay of Poland and the Baltic states. A strategy paired with attempts to torpedo the European “Nabucco” project, admittedly struggling for financing, but intended to allow gas from the Caspian to be transported bypassing Russian territory through the Caucasus.
Since the partnership agreement between the EU and Russia signed in 1994 and entered into force for 10 years in 1997, Europeans have been legitimately seeking to breathe new life into the “strategic” relationship between the EU and the Russian Federation. In this regard, the assessment of the “four components” signed at the time of the St. Petersburg agreement in late May 2003 remains particularly disappointing: in economic terms, for example, France stagnates at the ninth rank of Russia’s suppliers, far behind Germany and Italy, and holds, in terms of direct Russian investments, only the sixth place after Cyprus! As for the security domain, the 28 OSCE observers recently had to, under pressure from the Kremlin, abandon their observation mission on the outskirts of South Ossetia. Yet this was one of the key elements of an agreement hastily obtained by Nicolas Sarkozy for a ceasefire in the Georgian conflict of August 2008. To claim to establish, under these conditions, a “common security area” as discussed by Dmitry Medvedev and the French president at the recent Nice summit, can only raise the most extreme reservations.
