This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
As Gazprom CEO Arrives In Athens, EU (Coincidentally) Files Anti-Trust Charges Against Russian Giant
As the head of Russian gas giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller, arrives in Athens tomorrow (for talks with Greek PM Tsipras about "current energy issues of interest," which we suspect will include finalizing the "Turkish Stream" pipeline heralded by many as Greece's potential get-out-of-Troika-jail-card), he will face an increasingly anxious European Union. Fresh from its suit against Google, the WSJ reports, the EU's competition regulator plans to file formal antitrust charges against Russia’s state-owned gas company OAO Gazprom on Wednesday. This re-opens a suit from 2012 saying that it suspected the company of abusing its dominant position in those countries’ natural-gas supply. It appears Europe is getting nervous...
Having realized that a potential Greco-Russian pipeline deal could, according to one senior official "turn the tide" for the debt-stricken country, it appears the imminent arrival of Gazprom's CEO (as Reuters reports):
The head of Russian gas giant Gazprom Alexei Miller will be in Athens on Tuesday for talks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, the Greek energy ministry said in a statement on Monday.
They are due to discuss "current energy issues of interest," the ministry said. Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kuprianov confirmed Miller's visit.
During talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month, Tsipras expressed interest in Greece's participation in a pipeline that would bring Russian gas to Europe via its territory.
Has prompted the European Union to take indirect action... (as WSJ reports)
The European Union’s competition regulator plans to file formal antitrust charges against Russia’s state-owned gas company OAO Gazprom on Wednesday, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday, a step set to escalate the standoff between Europe and Moscow.
The European Commission started a formal investigation into Gazprom’s business practices in some eastern and southern European countries in 2012, saying that it suspected the company of abusing its dominant position in those countries’ natural-gas supply. The bloc’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said in February that she was ready to file formal charges against Gazprom “relatively short time span.”
A person familiar with the commission’s case against Gazprom said that the charge sheet, known as a statement of objections, against the company has been put on the agenda of the commission meeting on Wednesday and that no resistance was expected.
A person familiar with Gazprom said that the company had signaled its willingness to settle the case to the commission as recently as last week. Formal settlement talks broke down last year after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
With the charges, Ms. Vestager is escalating another antitrust case against a major company in a big country just one week after the commission filed formal charges against U.S.-based Google Inc. The case against Gazprom could potentially result in multibillion euro penalties against the company.
* * *
As a reminder, the possibility of a "Turkish Stream" pipeline, could kill two birds with one stone for Putin:
- Following the death of the South Stream, whereby the EU pressured Bulgaria to refuse passage of the Russian gas pipeline to Europe, Russia needed an alternative route of bypassing Ukraine (and Bulgaria) entirely, something which according to Kremlin's plan should happen over the next 3 years. And with Hungary and Serbia all eager to transit Russian gas to the Austrian central european gas hub, Greece was the missing link for a landline transit. With this agreement, Russia gets the green light to extend the Blue Stream all the way to Austria and preserve its dominance over the European energy market while leaving Ukraine in a completely barganining vacuum.
- Perhaps just as importantly, suddenly Russia will energy as the generous benefactor riding to Greece's salvation, in turn even further antagonizing the Eurozone and further cementing favorable public opinion. As a reminder, several weeks ago we showed that Russia already has a higher approval rating among the Greek population thatn the Eurozone. In this way, Russia has just won a critical ally for the very low price of just €5 billion, without even having to restructure the entire Greek balance sheet should Greece have exited the euro and been attracted to the Eurasian Economic Union. Which also means that all future attempts to impose further sanctions on Russia by Europe will fail thanks to the Greek veto vote.
Ironically, it was none other than Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schauble who said the Greeks are free to pursue deals with Russia and China as they rush to avoid an impending bankruptcy. Turns out the Greeks decided to do precisely as the German suggested, and the outcome will certainly not be to Germany's liking... and so now the EU is retaliating.
»
- 17040 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
... the EU forced Greece and Bulgaria to play the game according to the interests of the Western big companies [...] the failure of selling the Greek gas company (DEPA) to Russians, was not accidental, since in this case, Gasprom would have become the basic stakeholder of the Greek-Bulgarian pipeline IGB, in which the Greek company participates. And this means that the supply of Bulgaria and Romania with gas from Azerbaijan would be impossible. The 180 degree turn of European Commission is characteristic, since, while appeared at the start supporting fully the Nabucco pipeline, subsequently withdrew its support, since Nabucco was no longer competitive against Russian interests pipeline South Stream.
Euro is going full retard.
Once the two pipelines to China completes, there will be no gas for Euros until they behave.
Fuck the EU.
Exactly.
Exactly +1000000
How will they make Russian company pay penalty ? threats of what ? More Sanctions ? That will make Russia laugh.
FUCK EU
Gazprom can raise prices to pay off the fine over say 300 years.
Gazprom can raise the prices to pay a lot quicker than that. In the end, it will be the EU taxing its citizens to pay for this action to fine Gazprom who will then raise the prices and pay the fine by extracting it from the very same EU tax donkeys. Lawsuits can be useful for a lot of things, but getting natural gas to Europe is not one of them. Fact is, they depend on Russia, and Russia is going to leverage this to the hilt if it can.
They are perfectly free to buy gas elesewhere, e.g. Norwegian LNG. Lithuania (as US mouthpiece) has mandated that 25% of its gas now comes from Norway - at a price 25% higher than Rusiia, but that is their choice. Lithuania energy companies are none too pleased at this.
Read this : Russian letterone, who recently purchased offshore british wells, is being forced to sell its wells or face license revoke. So I suppose british companies in Russia should be subjected to the same?
British government pukes. World Trade my arse. WTO is a farce.
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150420/1021135948.html
Perhaps Gazprom just needs to pull out of Europe altogether and sell their gas exclusively to China and the East. Problem solved! Brussels keeps pushing, and Russia says, "Fine, we play a different game"? Perhaps Greece could be the location of some subsidiary of Gazprom, sitting as a go between Russia and the EU. Greece needs to go independent sometime and quit playing by EU rules. Might as well be the link between East and West gas.
Why? Then they get painted not as the bad guy, but as the truly diabolical evil puppy kicking uncle fucking sonsabitches. Everybody in this is motivated by self interest, but some are smarter than others. As it stands now, they can milk the EU financially and merely be painted as the bad guy.
FWIW, there are no "good guys" in this fight. Poeple need to step back look at this from the standpoint that every actor is self interested and not start falling into thinking that one side or another will win because they're good or bad.
As always there is a far deeper and longer game being played here and everywhere around the world, the vast and significant contradictions can be seen in nearly every sphere in all fields. The elite world left the simplicity of playing chess long long ago and are now playing something multi-dimensional...think "Das Glasperlenspiel" (The Glass Bead Game) by Hermann Hesse
The problem here is the EU needs to file an Antitrust suit against the EU...
By "Fuck the EU.", I take it you mean... "Brussels".
I.e. the servile, careerist, self-serving bureaucrats and ploticians*, doing whatever their masters want them to do, so that they get to stay on the taxpayer-funded Gravy Train?
Which sounds exactly like DC, and deserves the expression "Fuck DC!" -- as opposed to over-generalizing by saying "Fuck the USA!"
* Deliberately misspelled, to describe them more accurately
The EU will get more nervous when Russia turns off the f*cking gas.
Which would be a logical response. "Oh, you don't like our monopoly? Well, we'd better just go away then, so you feel better".
Pipeline through Turkey.... that seems to me to be a major strategic loss to those who want the Qatar-Syria-Turkey pipeline built, which is what the current Syrian situation seems to be all about. I can't see the Declining Empire and the Zionistas taking this too well.
Yep...Analagous to the crack whore complaining to the pimp about having to work too hard to get her fix. There is no question who will be hurting more at the end of the day.
Hmm, the EU is loading all chambers... :>D
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
If they don't want to get gas raped, they should get their shit together and pump billions into renewable energy research.
You mean unlike the hundreds of billions they already thrown at renewables?
You mean those hundreds of billions paid for by the plebs via government subsidies?
I agree with you, KnuckleDragger - but Im suprised no one is following up on the Thorium LFTR technology. Its cheap and safe. Low radiation, little waste as it burns almost 100% and requires just an initial uranium jump to get the reaction to begin. Not hot enough to require cooling towers, but hot enough to generate steam to push the turbines. Of course, this would put a lot of rich people out of business.
It's not cool like the multi-billion dollar battery factory that Tesla is building. I'm a fan of LFTR and the thing is most fiisionables can be adapted to a liquid salt reactor tech, but the eco-weenies shit their pants if you mention the word 'reactor'....
Many of the by product manufactures of gas, like paint fertiliser etc can't be made from renewables.
Mmm paint fertiliser... :>D
Why would anyone want to do business in Europe when you'll just get bitch-slapped for political reasons? Google should just turn off its search engine and all of its email in Europe and they can have fun with Microsoft.
Sure, that would never happen in the USSA. Land of the free. I don't fucking think.
Gazprom should just announce that they will pull out of the EU market so there won't be any chance of manipulation.....
Spot-On! I guess the little detail I missed, is, which (in)valid court of law will try this trumped up case?
The court of europussy and pedophilia
It has already announced there will be no gas transit throught Ukraine from 2019. If the Europeans want to get gas, they can always build their own pipelines to the Turkish / Greek trqnsit point. Or not - their choice.
The Kangaroo Court in the Hague?. I presume.
Don't insult decent kangaroo's like that... :-)
OT
Chelsea Manning and the Deepwater Horizon Deaths Posted on Apr 19, 2015By Greg Palast
Five years ago Monday, 11 men died on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig—despite Chelsea Manning’s effort to save their lives.
Let me explain.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/chelsea_manning_and_the_deepwater_horizon_killings_20150418
greg palast is allowed on the bbc mi5 mossad flagship newsnight
greg palast is very suspect deep cover yahudi
he has some great things to say to real you in.
he dangles his circumb scribed worm about scribbles and wriggles it about
and some limited hangout goy types bite.
just sayin
@Tony,
Are you familiar with Barrie Trower?
I was following the story on The Oil Drum at the time. Chelsea Manning's cable dump was unlikely to have helped, or to even be noticed, before the blowout.
In fact, BP had multiple opportunities to notice the well kicking and stop it before the blowout. It wasn't just the failed cement job (the proximal cause of the blowout), but it was that BP had been skimping on inspections and safety for the entire life of the project. After the fact, they sued Halliburton for the cement job, and Cameron for the BOP, and Transocean for the rig, but the bottom line was that it was a BP project, and their managers signed off on every item right up to the rig fire.
Think of all the money they saved by sending the engineering staff home early... no one who was present at the end knew enough to recognize the incipient blowout (and it must have taken a good half hour for it to kick all the mud out of the borehole).
LOL!! Speaking of anti-trust suits and monopolies... remind me, who has the current monopoly on printing money?
Tick tock motherfuckers...
Asymmetric Warfare!!
There can BE ONLY ONE!!
Of course Russian Federation Allied with the East who have their own Financial Rating Systems, Financial Systems, doesn't have to pay up or even show up in Court.
LOP on a roll today.
Counter sue for WW2 reparations.
Aye. If the Greeks claim for €280b whats 20 million Russians valued at?
4 trillion euro, but Russians will settle for 3 trillion :-)))
http://www.newsweek.com/russian-parliament-set-request-eu4-trillion-wwii...
About 3.5 times whatever the Germans have paid to Israel. I would have said to the Holocaust survivors, but the money never gets to them and they are treated like sh*t in Israel (relatively speaking given they are actually Jewish, not the real shit the goys have to put up with).
Go Putin. Please help us stop the NWO. Thankyou for any and all considerations. Citizens of the world.
Gazprom should sue the EU in Russian courts over using sanctions to affect the market place..
The Europussies continue to impress .
If Greece stays in the EU then the EU will be able to stuff around the Gazprom deal just like with Bulgaria. This is why Russia went to Turkey, a non EU country, and are willing to build the pipeline to the Greek/EU border but no further. So is Greece going to bailout of the EU so it can build the transist pipeline to the EU without EU/USA pressure and collect the revenge revenue? My guess is yes.
Mine too +1000
Gazprom gas contracts with EU end in 2019 until then nothing can be done to punish those stupid Europeans.
I guess I'm missing some info here...Europre won't need any gas after 2019? Or do they have some other plan to get it by then (maybe through Syria(?)...no guarantee of course)?
Russia will build the South Stream replacement that ends in gas hubs in Turkey and possibly Greece. If the EUropeans want the gas, they can build pipelines at their own expense to these transit points, or buy LNG at a price 25% or mre higher than Russian gas. Maybe the US unlimited gas source will be on stream by then so the Europeans could buy into that (fracking hells chance of that coming about noe oil/gas price is cratering).
In short, the Europeans, by following US diktat, have well and truly fucked themselves energy-wise.
just when you think the EU couldn't get any dumber, there is this news.
this conglamoration of idiots is slowly coming to an end.
who is next in line after GR?
maybe IT?
ironic Kohl put it together and his protege Merkel is taking it apart.
This was never about Greece paying back its "loans" its about buying strategic assets fire sale prices...This only works if they villanize the Greeks, as lazy, corrupt, worthless idiots who deserve their unfortunate situation...SHAKEDOWN 101..
The EU is good at ONE thing making sure to choke off any source of revenue to perpetuate the dire situation...
Theyre not stupid, they want HARD REAL assets, the EU can just print the $$ Greece needs.....they know $$ is fake...
and after they take whats left of Greece theyre going to come for yours and mine!!
huh? filing an anti-trust suit against a foreign supplier which they have zero control over. yea, sounds like a winner to me. The EU courts decide that the EU wins, so russia, complying with their desires, turns off their gas and sells it to china. the end.
Europe has turned full Zionist. It is now by definition always the victim never the perpetrator responsible for its difficulties.
Good catch! The EU has indeed gone full zionist.
Weird thing is, WSJ says Russia was willing to settle with Brussels instead of giving the Russian version of "up yours, pal". But now this is a threat hanging over the evil Rooskies? Hmmmm, sounds like a negotiating ploy by Brussels.
The Greeks will say anything to anybody to get them to "invest" in Greece, imagine the leverage Greece would have over the EU and Russia if they had a pipeline already.
Russia should invest in NATGAS tankers and LNG for exports, any pipeline is going to be "tolled" by all the "governments" it passes through.
That's why I wouldn't have it "pass through". Have it stop at the border of Greece. Maybe even stop at the border of Turkey. If I were Russia, after seeing the headache "their pipeline" through Ukraine has been, I wouldn't see the value of owning one in any of these countries.
Would Greece have some leverage against Russia? A little...but they still have their pipeline through the Ukraine, and new pipe heading toward China... and I would take the odds that Russia can wait out the profits from their gas longer than the EU politicians can wait out their people not having gas any day of the week. Greece will use their leverage against Europe to drop money all over their people (like they always do) and any leverage they had on Russia will evaporate the same way (they couldn't wait out getting the revenues of their part of the sale to the Europeans too long or their people don't get no govt feta.
There's a lot of ways this could go really.
Green energy "Carbon taxes" (EU taxes) will push the baltic states out of the EU, voluntarily, economic freedom always wins, its pressure is like gravity, endless greed always wins
So could the Greek's leave the EU, work out a deal where they buy the gas from Gazprom and then Greece be the seller to all the EU asshats that apparently only helped the PIIGS cook their books to get them on the hook, to later reel all their hard assets in as "payback"? I could see some benefits to Russia in this set up too...no having to deal with the EU directly (and their threats like this this one) while having a little fun turning the tables on Germany and the others.
Russia: OK, we have our pipeline ready and our great "independent" trading partner Greece is ready to supply all of souther and central Europe with gas now. By the way...our pipeline to the Ukraine has some real problems right now that will require repairs and possibly a complete shutdown. Thank goodness we had the forsight to build the one through Turkey, eh? Just "negotiate" with our friends in Greece for your supply from now on...luckily you have treated them well lately. Of course they might charge a little premium on THEIR gas...because as you might have heard...
THEY HAVE SOME DEBT THEY REALLY NEED TO PAY BACK. lmao!!!!
Well summarised except just cos Zorba leaves the Euro doesn't mean he has to leave the EU, where he can stay sipping Ouzo in the sunshine for ever. Euro currency and EU membership are very different.
True enough. Though I have a sneaking suspicion it might all of a sudden be presented as a package deal depending on how much Greek/Russian friendliness is displayed prior to their GREXIT. There's a lot of moving parts here. Of course, there's nothing written (that I know of) requiring them to leave the EU if they leave the EURO, when has laws and things mattered to the banking crowd. If they can fund Ukraine during a civil war, they can trump up some reason to try and block Greece from the EU if they leave saying their agreements with Russia make some XYZ subsection of ABC requirement null and void or something...not wanting to give Russia the chance to have Greece be a voice for them in EU dealings.
But you're certaily right...and I should have used terms a tad more carefully there. ;-)
NWO getting old and desperate.
The EU has long demanded the power of Brussels to regulated Russian business and industry! Here is just another attempt to get Russia to accept a legal precedent of Brussels legal juristiction over Russian Energy. It was this very subject that derailed South Stream. Brussels demanded Russia pay to build the pipeline and then give over a share of capacity to EU gas interests. A game of "You build it, and we sue to get a free stake in it". This is calssic EU, where they believe Brussels is a dictatorship from the Urals to Portugal.
This step is an obvious attempt to get a free stake in Gas Prom for western corproate interests. Imagine Europe, a state where monoply power is everywhere, that they would file an anti trust lawsuit! Ha! Ha!
This is one more Washington engineered plot in the economic war on Russia. Washington wants EU citizens to be forced to pay double for American LNG over cheap unlimited Russian gas flowing through existing pipelines to Gas terminals in Europe.
Quit posting Onion articles on here. You almost had me though. Good one.
The banksters need to repay us.
Europe suing Google and Gazprom because Europe sucks at IT and wants to regulate a Russian energy. LOL what a bunch of fucking useless clowns that run Europe.
What kind of "monopoly" tells you "if you want our gas come to Turkey to get it, and if not it's fine"?
I fail to see how the EU has any leverage in a negotiation where they are massively fucked if Gazprom shuts off the gas. Just turning off the flow could topple several governments, especially if it happens at a point that would ensure a very cold winter.
The truth about the conflict with Russia >> http://wp.me/p4OZ4v-1Gm
There is no more retarded buresucracy than the EU competition commission. Its agenda is based on an economic theory on monopolies that has been utterly discredited since the 1960s.