Russian President Vladimir Putin will make one last deal with his old friend Gerhard Schroeder just days before an election that is expected to throw the German Chancellor out of office.
At a ceremony in Berlin today, Mr. Putin and Mr. Schroeder are scheduled to sign an agreement to build a massive pipeline underneath the Baltic Sea, connecting Russia directly with natural-gas customers in Western Europe.
The last-minute deal, worth about $10-billion (U.S.), has caused outrage on many fronts. Germany's opposition parties accuse the Russian President of trying to affect the country's Sept. 18 election, as Mr. Schroeder, the Kremlin's most trusted ally in the West, struggles with poor results in recent polls. Other Germans worry about growing too dependent on Russian energy.
The most vocal opponents of the pipeline are Germany's neighbours. Ukraine currently delivers about 80 per cent of Russian gas to Europe; the pipeline would cut that business sharply. Poland and the Baltic states will also lose out, because they had been proposing an alternative route across their territory.
None of those countries have endeared themselves to Russia in recent years, however, and observers say Moscow wants to circumvent them with a link to Germany that gives it better access to the energy markets of Western Europe, and, as a result, a stronger political lever among European governments.
Bronislaw Geremek, a Polish member of the European Parliament and the country's former foreign minister, said the undersea line to Germany will cost two or three times as much as Warsaw's alternative. "It's a political game, not simply an economic agreement. The Russian government is using this as blackmail."
Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski was less blunt with his criticism, but reportedly expressed disappointment that the deal was reached "above our head and the heads of the EU," without consulting the other countries affected.
A spokesman for Mr. Putin declined to comment.
Western Europe needs Russian gas, as its own resources are depleting. Germany feels the pinch acutely, with half its homes heated by natural gas and the government slowly phasing out nuclear power.
Speaking to the Bundestag for the last time before the election, Mr. Schroeder said the deal will secure an energy supply for the country.
Sitting among the opposition, Melanie Osswald, a member of parliament for the Christian Social Union, said she remains unconvinced about the deal's merits and does not consider it irreversible.
"We should not be so dependent on Russia," Ms. Osswald said. "It's becoming a very difficult situation for our neighbours."
Ms. Osswald, who sits on a Bundestag human-rights committee, said her party would be more critical of Russia if elected into government.
So far, Germany has pointedly avoided discussing the Russian issues that attract attention from other governments, such as the ongoing war in Chechnya and the Kremlin's control over the media. Last year, Mr. Schroeder described Mr. Putin as a "crystal-clear democrat."
By GRAEME SMITH |