Pipeliners

30.10.2006 MosNews - Germany’s big gas pipeline deal with Russia has been criticized by a U.S. official, in a sign of Washington’s mounting unease about Berlin’s ties with Moscow. Matthew Bryza, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for the Caucasus and southern Europe, indicated that the Baltic Sea pipeline would deepen Europe’s dependence on Russian gas. In an interview with Financial Times Deutschlan, which was published on Monday, Oct. 30, Bryza said: “That project simply raises the question what diversification means when it comes to gas supply. If you live in Germany you do not want to go through what happened last winter with Ukraine [when Russia shut off the supply of gas] . . . I wonder as a U.S. official how much diversification anybody can develop by having more pipelines into the same supplier.” Relations between Russia and the United States are at one of their lowest ebbs since the Cold War, partly because of the U.S. support for the “color revolutions” in the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Georgia. Washington is worried that Angela Merkel, German chancellor, is slipping from her intention to distance the German government more from Moscow than was the case under her predecessor, Gerhard Schr?der. U.S. diplomats add that European states failed to give sufficient backing for Georgia when tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow recently rose because of a spy scandal. In the interview, Bryza cautioned Russia not to cut off gas to Ukraine again or to do the same to Georgia, which was denied gas for about two weeks last winter after explosions damaged a pipeline. Bryza echoed concerns voiced by some EU officials that the Baltic pipeline weakened European solidarity in negotiating with Moscow, particularly since it bypasses Poland. German politicians maintain that the pipeline boosts the country’s energy security by increasing the number of supply routes. In comments seemingly aimed at Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom, Bryza said: “Very often the monopolist will work to cut a specific deal with an individual country . . . If that happens it’s much harder for Europe to stand together.” He said Europe needed to work more with the Caspian area, and in particular Azerbaijan, if its dependency on Russian gas were not to soar. He added that the United States predicted that Russia would increase its share of Europe’s gas market from 25 percent today to 33 percent within a decade, but that Azerbaijan could increase its exports to about a quarter of the Russian level.