Russia-Ukraine Dispute Highlights Europe’S Political Weakness

One of the events that most caught my attention in recent days was the dispute between Russia and Ukraine regarding the renegotiation of gas prices that usually takes place at the beginning of every year. Ukraine, as much of the rest Europe, buys all of its gas from Gazprom, the state-owned Russian energy company. Apart from Italy and Spain, which both have submarine gas pipelines from Lybia and Algeria, all of Europe depends on Russia’s gas. Moreover, 80% of this gas is received via Ukraine, while the remaining 20% passes through Belarus and the Baltic states. It is important to remember that Ukraine, unlike its eastern European neighbors (Word indicates “neighbours” as a mistake), is presently not part of the EU, although has strong aspirations to join both the EU common market and the NATO alliance. Aside from major economic problems and a need to reform its political institutions, confrontation with Russia is one of the major obstacles on Ukraine’s path to the EU. European countries, quite understandably, are not willing to exacerbate relations with their giant energy partner for the sake of their small eastern neighbor. Other than the U.S., there’s no one pushing for Ukraine’s integration in Europe’s political, economic and defence structures.  
The main reason why this price dispute started was Ukraine’s unwillingness to accept Russia’s proposed price of $250 per 1000 cubic meters. It has to be said that, in recent years, Ukraine’s has been paying a   markedly lower price (roughly $200) than the rest of Europe (roughly $400). After negotiations between the two contracting parts broke down, Gazprom stated that, if negotiations were to start again, it would offer Ukraine the standard European market price of $418 per 100 cubic meters. Another object of the dispute is Ukraine’s request to increase the transit fees Russia pays for gas supplied to the rest of Europe. Not surprisingly, as the outcome of negotiations started to look uncertain, several European...