Prime minister of Finland Matti Vanhanen who spoke in front of the European Parliament on December 19 on the occasion of his country’s closing presidency of the EU, severely criticized Russia for a “deficit of democracy” and for its plans to sign food import agreements with each EU country separately. He was equally displeased by Russia’s support of Belarus, dubbing the current Minsk regime a “scar” on Europe’s face. Foreign minister of Belgium Karel de Guht used very similar language speaking from the OSCE chairman’s perspective. He would not describe Russia as a democratic state, doubting our goodwill to settle the Transdniester and South Ossetia conflicts.

Strictly speaking, it is hardly suitable for a prime minister to assess other countries’ behavior and give them grades. The Belgian minister didn’t sound quite politically correct either. Has someone put him wise to it? The Finnish premier’s political demarche could only be explained by one thing. His government had simultaneously rejected the plan to build the “energy bridge” with Russia which had expected to export 8.7 billion kWt/h annually. The joint project of Baltenergo (a LaES subsidiary) and United Power (a Russian-Finnish company) had envisaged the laying of two 150-kilometer-long lines of high-voltage cable with wattage of 1,000 MWt. The line was to link the Russian village of Kernovo in the Leningrad Region and Finland’s Kotka to export electricity. The projected annual yield of the project was estimated at EUR117.2 million. The official reason why the Finnish side went back on the project was its high cost – a total of EUR2 billion including the infrastructure it required. However, the real problem was that once this “bridge” was in place – a de facto merger of the two nations’ energy systems – the Finnish electric grid would most likely end up shifted to Russian standards. This is how macroeconomic issues turn into geopolitical ones.

This is why Russia was given a ‘Poor’ for democracy and reprimanded ‘for bad behavior.’ Finland and Belgium simply carried on the brawl started November 24 in Helsinki, at the summit of 25 EU countries’ leaders and the president of Russia. It probably was one of the biggest fiascoes in the history of Moscow’s relations with “Europe.” The Helsinki summit was supposed to mark the start of work on the new Russia-EU cooperation agreement – Moscow even suggested the “strategic partnership” wording. However, the discussion never got anywhere near partnership. Formally, it happened because Poland vetoed the talks with Russia protesting against the import ban on Polish meat and agricultural produce. In reality, it had to do with our energy – in both electric and political senses.

Still, it would be unwise to believe the key problem between Russia and the West boils down to meat or to wattage. The problem is, how is Russia seen by Europe and America? In economic respect, we have been offered “colonization without integration.” Essentially it means they would like to satisfy their hunger for hydrocarbons but prevent our energy exports from becoming a geopolitical pressure tool. This could never have happened in the Soviet Union of course; the emerging post-Soviet Russia couldn’t count on it either. First, oil and gas could be imported from the Middle East with relative stability, and the consumer market was also stable at the time. It was not until the 1990s that the demand for hydrocarbons (mainly natural gas) doubled. Pity the USSR hadn’t lived to see it.

Second, exporting oil and gas to Europe was our only option then. We were more dependent on the consumers than they were on us: neither China, nor Japan – let alone Korea – could compete with Europe in these terms. Third, both East and West ardently believed that nuclear energy would soon replace hydrocarbons. This belief was strong until the accident at the US Three Mile Island power plant in 1979; the Chernobyl tragedy of 1986 was the moment of Epiphany.

Fourth, the European Union (the Common Market at the time) was the key macroeconomic standards-setter. Having largely retained its former role, today’s EU is looking with growing anxiety at the “tigers and tiger-cubs” in the Pacific region, who are experimenting with different form of economic cooperation. In this sense, the SCO (Russia-China), the EurAsEC (Russia-Central Asia), let alone the APEC (the Pacific region) can so far compete with Europe in energy export and import potential. In other words, without Europe, we would still survive however difficult it is. Turkey’s obvious blackmail of Brussels was an eloquent example of that – if the EU doesn’t let us in, we’ll knock on the EurAsEC door. Consequently, fifth, the political and economic map of the world is likely to change very rapidly in the next 50 or 70 years (one generation!), including the expected upsurge of the so-called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China – it is time to get used to the new acronym). Their estimated energy demand will exceed today’s total energy consumption by America, Europe and Japan 6 or 7-fold.

Therefore, along with gaining force and claiming raw-materials-export supremacy, Russia will be annoying Europe more and more over time. This is where all problems are rooted – the Finnish and Belgian criticisms included.