States of Emergency declared across Europe over gas

www.timesonline.co.uk...



Governments across Europe declared states of emergency and ordered factories to close as Russia cut all gas supplies through Ukraine yesterday in their worsening dispute over unpaid bills.

José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, accused the two countries of taking the EU’s energy supply “hostage” amid a cold snap across the Continent, and urged them to reopen the pipelines immediately.

Schools and factories were closed and trees were felled to keep home fires burning after Russia turned off the gas taps to more than a dozen countries. It was a clear demonstration of the dependence of the Continent on Russian gas supplies.

Err... Did Anyone not expect this to happen? I understand that I am a child of the cold war and know what to expect but did the younger generation actually not expect Russia to be Russia?_javascript:icon('')

reply to post by infolurker

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Really bad timing, there have been cold waves all over the continent the past week; Alaska is having a record cold spell as well. I smell a new war front here.

Yeah this issue has been in the news for two weeks now, and is being discussed in the following thread as well:

www.abovetopsecret.com...'




Ukraine has failed to pay their gas bills since the third quarter of 2008, and the dispute mirrors that of 2006 - so yes it was predicted.





Even children of the cold war need to grow up and embrace the present.




What is that supposed to mean? Did you not expect Ukraine to be Ukraine as well, and act out like the thieves that they are?

War front? There will be no war over thus - just a bunch of PR stunts and feces throwing until EU mediates an agreement.

You could call this a Cold War though - as in a literal cold war. First you make your enemy freeze to death, and then when everyone is frozen you come in and take their land.

Betcha the Europe picks up the tab.

To Russia with Love

From Europe

Be careful though - Yuschenko and Ukrainians might take these gifts for granted and would want to keep them coming. Soon enough Ukraine or rather its failed government would be an equivalent of a person in vegetative state hooked up to feeding tubes. Maybe its better to put the bastard out of its misery and let nature take its course.

[edit on 8-1-2009 by maloy]

Or how about we cripple russias already weak economy and then move in and buy up there oil and gas companies!

What are you going to buy it up with? Frozen popsicles and bailout receipts? Last I looked everyones economy was pretty much knee deep in sh*t.

And who exactly are you going to buy Gazprom from? Majority of the company is not traded on the exchange, but owned by the federal government and federal-backed private oligarchs. You going to knock on Kremlin's door clenching a bunch of Euro bills?

Or there could be a cold war of attrition to see who would last longest. Will Russia's economy hit rock bottom before the Europeans freeze so hard their limbs start falling off?



Realistically though it appears everything will be settled within a week. Russia is currently negotiating with EU mediators, and monitors will be send to Ukraine to observe the operation of the pipeline.

reply to post by maloy

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The Moscow Daily News has been reporting that the Government is anticipating possible rioting soon over the worsening state of it's economy.

Maybe they are just turning the tap off a bit to help raise the price? The war in Gaza is causing American gas prices to spike. Russians can't evoke the threat of widening Middle East hostilities crimping their ability to supply and deliver oil.

It looks more like a concerted effort of the major oil producing states and their elites to raise the gas prices to me.

I guess it is a choice to some degree - Ukraine can choose cheap gas and be in Russia's direct area of influence.. or attempt to be in Europe and settle for higher gas prices. Now if Europe does want Ukraine in the gang and a weaker Russia, I can completely see them picking up the bill not only now but also in the future - say some sort of financial aid with weak oversight that can be channeled to Ukraine's energy market.

The last thing I heard about this was that there will be a group of EU observers in Ukraine to see if everything runs as wanted.

Ukraine was against the presence of Russian elements in that group, so I do not know if they reached an agreement or not.

Edit: here in Portugal we do not have any supply problems (at least for now) because we get our natural gas from North Africa.

[edit on 9/1/2009 by ArMaP]

I don't know what Moscow News you are referring to, but there won't be any rioting anytime soon. Russia was in a far worse situation in 1998, when the economy outright failed and defaulted - and there was no rioting then. Today's generation of Russians are fairly used to the rapid ups and downs.




Nope - from the analyst reports I read the dispute is doing more damage than good to Gazprom. First Gasprom (and Russia) is losing 2 weeks worth of gas revenues. Even a substantial price increase would not be able to set that off. Second, the main customers in Europe are unhappy and may in the future look to a different supplier for part of their imports. Third, Gazprom is a huge conglomerate, and it has more of a long-term strategy which does not involve short-term price speculation games.




I think it is more likely that OPEC's production volume has something to do with it.

The problem is it chose to stray away from Russia and towards NATO, yet it refuses to accept the increase in gas prices. Somehow it feels entitled to continue buying gas at heavily subsidised old prices.

The problem for Ukraine is that much of their key industry is heavily reliant on cheap gas. More expensive gas could cause these industries to crumble, or would require them to undergo substantial modernization to become more efficient.




The thing is no one has any problems with Ukraine joining EU - not even Russia. So Europeans aren't ganging up on Russia by accepting Ukraine into EU. The problem arises with Ukraine's Yuschenko wanting to join NATO. Europeans don't really care much for Ukraine joining NATO - so why should they help it economically?

Only U.S. really wants Ukraine in NATO - and one could say that current dispute has much to do with U.S. and its puppet Yuschenko. So it is not Europe that should pay Ukraine's bill, but U.S. We shall wait and see how intent Obama is on nurturing the puppet that is Ukraine. I think U.S. has far more pressing issues at this time that worrying about Yuschenko - who is on his way out anyway.