Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr.18
By Seymur Aliyev - Trend:
Today, under the conditions of the global economic crisis, one very often expects to stumble upon such an announcement: "There is a country for sale in Europe. Not expensive!" Of course, it's a joke, however, there is less and less logic in the activities of the European Union in general and of some EU member states.
While Europe's energy security depends on such countries as Azerbaijan and Turkey, EU makes thoughtless decisions, for instance, as the latest document of the European Parliament on the "Armenian genocide".
However, the latest remarks by one of the key transit countries of Azerbaijani gas to Europe - Greece - suggest that there is no unity in EU. As Spiegel wrote, Russia and Greece plan to sign an agreement, under which Moscow will allocate up to 5 billion euros as prepayment for gas transit to Athens for construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras visited Moscow to get this money. Apparently, this is how much Athens' consent costs to cooperate with Moscow and to reject all-European interests. It is obvious that Greek government, which has made a lot of promises, tries to resolve its financial problems. But will these 5 billion euros help Greece which has hundreds of billions of debt? It's not even a question.
Naturally, it is time for Brussels to think over the integrity of the union, called the European Union. At the same time, it should take a number of important steps. First of all, it is related to approval of the deal on acquisition of Greek gas transmission system operator DESFA by SOCAR.
In the current circumstances the European Commission's doubts regarding compliance of the transaction with the regulations of the EU on competition look at least funny. The question is: will there be competition if Russian Gazprom gets DESFA? The current development of events points namely at this fact.
What will Azerbaijani company get from the transfer of DESFA? The first and foremost, it will allow competitors of Gazprom to control the transport infrastructure in Europe. Russia may build the Turkish Stream gas pipeline till the border with Europe (between Turkey and Greece), however further it will have to use either the TAP gas pipeline (operated by a consortium of European companies) or internal gas transport infrastructure of Greece - DESFA (SOCAR expects approval of the deal with it).
Today, the countries of Eastern and Southern Europe in the first place expect alternative (to the Russian) gas. Namely these countries are the most vulnerable ones during the current crisis, and the Russian pressure is exerted namely on them. Along with the traditional set of commonalities in history, religion and other things, and Moscow is now using the most effective tool - money. Countries having really huge debts need them currently because they have to pay in time of crisis and low income. Of course, the success of this process for Russia has decreased significantly due to the crisis in Ukraine and has very alarmed Eastern Europe. However, that doesn't concern Greece, apparently.
Currently, the government of this country chooses with whom to be - with Europe or Russia. One can recall that Ukraine also had a similar issue before the conflict.
Seymur Aliyev is the head of Trend Agency's Russian News Service