Pipeline politics is the new Great Game

‘We’re always told that Russia is using its economic resources to achieve foreign policy aims,’ President Putin told journalists recently. But, he went on, it is ‘ill-wishers’ in the Western press who paint Russia as a threat to European energy security. ‘That is not the case.’

Yet within minutes of this assurance, Putin issued a bald threat to one of the EU’s newest members that was a textbook example of how Russia has bullied its way to energy dominance. If Bulgaria did not accept Russia’s terms for the planned pipeline from its Black Sea port of Bourgas to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis, Putin warned, it risked losing decades of revenues from shipping supplies of Russian oil. A week later, Bulgaria dropped its objections to Russia’s terms and signed a preliminary deal.

Europe’s fear of the energy superpower to its east began in earnest when Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine at the start of 2006. But it is in the Black Sea and the Caspian, where Russia competes head-to-head with rival suppliers, that the game of pipeline politics is being played most aggressively today. At stake is Europe’s ability to pipe in oil and gas from the Caspian region and the Middle East — bypassing Russia. ‘It’s like the Great Game between Russia and Britain in the 19th century,’ one Western executive in the region claims, ‘but rather than India being the target, Western markets are the targets. The Bosphorus Straits rather than mountain passes are the bottleneck. Rather than silk and opium, it’s about oil.’

The EU used to let the United States do the worrying over its energy dependence on Russia, but it is now for the first time playing a role. Energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs is lobbying hard for three new routes.