Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel brushed aside the knee-jerk blaming of Russia to actually touch on the cause of the serious energy situation. In comments to the Financial Times on Oct. 6, she said that Russia has fulfilled all their contractual obligations on gas, but “we should ask the question: Was enough gas ordered [by the EU], or is the high price at the moment maybe the reason for not ordering so much?” That is, the EU has been wedded to the spot market, and flinched on ordering enough natural gas, perhaps waiting for a better day. But speculators seized upon the EU’s temporary lack and drove the futures market for natural gas through the roof. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed in the same direction, indicating that long-term contracts were the way to deal with staples such as energy. He said that Gazprom is pumping the maximum “within the framework of the existing contracts.” In September, some 40 Members of the European Parliament had called upon the EU to investigate Gazprom for pushing the price up, but are these MEPs actually ready to investigate the spot market?
Then on BBC on Oct. 7, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan felt he had to warn Russia not to use the gas situation as “a tool of coercion and a political weapon.” On Oct. 8, Peskov responded with the obvious points: “We categorically disagree with Mr. Sullivan in this respect. Moreover, we are certain that this is a wrong point of view.” Everyone knows that “Russia complies with all of its assumed commitments to the full extent” and that Russia wants more long-term contracts, which are shock absorbers against market fluctuations. Russia had never used energy as a political weapon, but the U.S. constantly threatens and employs sanctions against commercial energy projects. “In this particular case, the United States has directly used the energy issue as an instrument of political and commercial blackmail. We have never done that,” he was quoted by TASS as saying.
