Margrethe and the bear
The European Union’s trustbuster turns her fire on Gazprom—marking a big change in European policy and the gas business
GAZPROM revelled in its untouchability. It was the main supplier of imported gas to the European Union, benefiting both from close Kremlin patronage (the Russian state is its largest shareholder) and from a web of business and political relationships in countries it sold gas to, notably Germany. Alternatives to Russian gas were scant, as was customers’ willingness to resist Gazprom’s dominance.
Now the EU is taking on the Russian gas beast. The first blow fell on April 22nd when the EU’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, sent the company a long-expected “statement of objections” (Euro-parlance for a charge-sheet) alleging market abuses. The unpublished document runs to hundreds of pages. They detail the murky world of Russian gas exports, featuring lucrative intermediary companies with unknown beneficial ownership, deals struck by politicians not businessmen, and a hefty dose of geopolitical favouritism.
