Posted on 05/13/2006 7:23:10 AM PDT by A. Pole
RUSSIA: Russia is imposing a quadruple hike in gas prices to neighbour Belarus, triggering fears of a crisis similar to the stand-off earlier this year with Ukraine.
State-owned gas giant Gazprom has told Belarus that it must pay world prices for its gas from December if it wants to continue getting supplies.
Ukraine's failure to pay a similar gas price hike on January 1st saw Russia turn off the taps, triggering a crisis that spread across much of Europe.
Critics say the demand, on one of Europe's poorest countries, is being used as leverage for Gazprom to get control of Belarus's state-owned gas pipelines.
The move is likely to sharpen anxieties in EU countries already concerned that the Kremlin may be using gas supply as an economic weapon.
The price increase for Belarus is unusual because, unlike Ukraine, its president Alexander Lukashenko is a staunch ally of Russia.
Mr Lukashenko won re-election last month in a vote condemned as fraudulent by the EU and the US, but welcomed as fair by Moscow.
Gazprom insists the demand is based on commercial reality: Belarus pays $47 for a cubic metre of gas now, compared to the European price of $230, under a subsidy contract that runs to the end of the year.
The company says that, as with Ukraine, it wants to end the practice of offering subsidies to former Soviet states to bring it into line with modern market practices.
Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the demand was being made now to give Belarus time to adjust. "So that that issue of gas prices for Belarus should not become the topic of New Year's Eve television programmes, we want to agree in advance how to work next year," he told Russian television.
Belarus has made no official comment on the demand, with Mr Lukashenko a virtual recluse since his March 19th election victory. Diplomats in Moscow say that if the Belarus leader sells his distribution network to Gazprom, he is likely to be offered a fresh subsidy agreement, in part because his impoverished country cannot pay the increase.
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The Ukraine constitution would be after the fact, Russia has every right within international law to forclose if Ukraine renegs. They have rock solid defense in court, as well as in terms of fire power.
You regurgitate slogans. Most of people both in the West and East prefer money, comfort and security over freedom.
That is about as succinct an observation as can be stated!
Reminds me of my long-departed Father-in-Law's distillation of human economic history: "The strong take it away from the weak and the smart take it away from the strong"....
You are wrong in this point. I do not advocate price fixing and it makes sense that the eastern Europeans will pay market prices. It is in the interest of us all that they reduce their massive wasting of energy and this will only happen if the prices are rising. The problem is, that the transition to the market realities has to be made smooth without leaving them out in the cold winter. They need -let's say- 4 or 5 years to change their economies and technical requirements to market prices. Since Russia is the most important inheritor of the USSR they have to take over this responsibility. Not for ever but for a while. Ukraine and Belarus were also parts of the USSR. So they have a right to a passable solution.
With Lukashenko out of the way the Belarussian people will prosper and choose a leader of THEIR design, not the one that best pleases Poland or the EU.
Agreed. It is not Poland, Putin or the EU who has the right ro choose the leader of Belarus. It will be the Belorussian people.
The German situation seems quite different and mostly unrelated.
Things have to be seen in an overview. Gasprom has a strategy. The most important part of this strategy is Germany since there comes the money from. The "new" Europeans play only a underpart in this play. The pay too little to be important. Therefore the only one who has the possibility to change something to the better in the recent gas crisis is Mrs. Merkel and her gouvernment. That are simply the facts.
Ha, the Ukraine couldn't build a full nuke if it wanted to, and even if they could the Russians would have the dirt on it before one rolled off the line.
You should really lookup on the Ukraine military prowess.
80 years of someone else looking after your ass doesn't exactly becme the mother of invention.
The transition was never smooth.
I personally know folks who lost everything they had when the ruble went from 5 to a dollar to 40 to a dollar.
You don't like price fixing and don't like Lukashenko, I don't see a reason to cry.
As for Germany I was under the impresson there's a new pipe line going strait to them, they've got the best energy garuntee in the EU, I don't know much more than that.
Are you saying that the Russians do not now own the pipeline is Belorus?
and what "market " price are you talking about? Russia pays only $50 for it in Kazakstan and when Ukraine did the same thing, Putin shut off the valve.
"which will be returned to Russia if you negate the treaty"
What about the treaty that obligated Russia to allow the transport of the $50 gas that Ukraine bought from Turkmanistan.
"the Russians would have the dirt on it before one rolled off the line. "
Then what happened to your invincible Russian army in Afghanistan?
Putin knows the EU wont do anyhting...hell, the EU doesnt even have a army
That would be SOVIET army. How many Ukrainians were involved in the decision to invade Afghanistan? You don't want that secret out do you?
Or, what the heck. Straight from the declassified archives the following Ukrainians were on the Politburo and made the decision to invade:
Brezhnev: a lad from Dnepropetrovsk, UKRAINE.
Chernenko: while born in Russia, his father was Ukrainian - making him UKRAINIAN.
Kirilenko: Ukrainian and prior to joining the Politburo was the Ukrainian Communist Party boss in Dnepropetrovsk, UKRAINE.
Gromyko - Belarus/Ukrainian
That's a lot of oppressed Ukrainians making those weighty decisions...
Personally, I just call them Soviets, but since you continue to spin things based on ethnicities I thought I'd point the Ukrainians running the show out to you.
How do you explain the fact that the same Soviet (as much Russian as Ukrainian) army could not defeat tiny Finland in 1940 but was able to stand ground against German army one/two years later?
History is full of paradoxes and the failed Finnish campaign could be responsible for derailing Hitler's calculations.
There are always reasons to make it better than in the past.
As for Germany I was under the impresson there's a new pipe line going strait to them, they've got the best energy garuntee in the EU, I don't know much more than that.
Well - for us Germans it does not matter through which pipe our gas is coming. The pipes through Ukraine and Poland were also sure for us since we are the most important and reliable clients of Russia. The Russians can not afford to stop the deliveries to Ukraine and Poland since they would stop the deliveries to us then. It is more a problem of Russia if the Ukrainians are siphoning (stealing) gas since they have to pump more gas than they sell then. The Poles are for sure reliable clients (in difference to their neighbours in the east) and steal no gas, but they also have enough reasons to mistrust Russia. We all know that there is no warm friendship between Moscow and Warsaw. Well I think that Gasprom theoretically could deliver cheaper gas to Germany when the "black holes" in Belarus and Ukraine are closed. In reality we Germans will pay even more. Have you ever heared that energy prices were lowered??! The offshore-pipeline will cost millions and bazillions more than a conventional one. This has also be paid by German consumers.
Therefore we Germans have no benefit from the this offshore-pipeline. The security of our energy deliveries from Russia was never in danger since we are the ones to pay good cold cash for it. This pipeline makes only sense to Russia and Gasprom because they will soon be able to shut the lines through Ukraine and Belarus. Furthermore they can press the Poles to be more submissive to the Kremlin. Nothing of this is in our (German) interest. There is only one German who will cash in because of this new pipeline:
This guy is a traitor and Judas who sold his own people.
Soviet Union ended FIFTEEN years ago.
At the same time the pipeline to China is being built.
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