Tag Archives: Energy

Russia to join Nabucco pipeline project?

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Well, that could be one way of diffusing the ongoing EU/CIS standoff over EUropean energy supplies that recently saw death and destruction in Georgia and much of southern/eastern Europe lose gas supplies in the middle of winter. EurActiv reports that “Lawmakers in the European Parliament are considering inviting Russia to join the Union’s Nabucco gas pipeline project, to avoid competition with rival projects sponsored by Moscow in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute.”

The thing is, though, that Nabucco was designed almost exclusively to cut out Russia’s dominant role in European energy transit, as pointed out (with maps) back in August last year, plus July 2008, February 2008, January 2008, July 2007, and doubtless several dozen other posts.

Could giving Russia a share in the pipeline’s running (and, no doubt, profits) be a sensible solution? Well, yes. Sod the new dawn in EU-US relations that so many have been hoping for with the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House – Europe’s most vital extra-European relationship is not with America, but with Russia (counting Russia as outside Europe solely for the purpose of this post). We may have had a few bitchy slanging matches with the US during the Bush years, but the deterioration in European/Russian relations (and yes, I do mean the whole of Europe, not just EU member states) over the same period has been far more damaging for both parties.

With Putin – seemingly still obsessed with macho nationalistic posturing and apparently unable to stomach entering into genuine partnerships with the West – still pulling the strings, it’s likely going to be another few years before a true rapprochement between Europe and Russia can occur (which still seems odd, Putin having grown up in Russia’s most European city, St Petersburg, and having spent several years working for the KGB in Berlin). But appeals to Russian self-interest and self-esteem are certainly going to be the way to break down the barriers – played right, a Nabucco team-up with Russia could give the Kremlin just the kind of ego-boost it seems to run on. Europe on her knees, begging “Oh, won’t you help us, dear Russia? We can’t do it without you! is guaranteed to give plenty of good propaganda value back home, so has a moderate chance of succeeding.

(Warning – lots of short posts likely to follow on various topics as I continue to catch up on what I’ve missed over the last couple of weeks…)

Welcome to 2009

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Nothing changes, it seems. Just like 2008, 2009 promises to bring yet more Russian sabre-rattling and European fears about the continent’s long-term energy security.

Also time to welcome in the Czech EU presidency. With the Czech Republic currently being run by the neoliberal, eurosceptic Civic Democratic Party of President Václav Klaus and Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek – a party that’s already begun to align itself with Declan Ganley’s new anti-Lisbon Treaty Libertas movement – it could prove an interesting six months.

With the EU still stuck in a deadlock until the Irish question is sorted, will Klaus – increasingly a hero of the eurosceptic right EU-wide thanks to his repeated anti-EU pronouncements (even calling for the EU to be scrapped altogether back in 2005) – be able to use his elevated position over the next six months to advance the eurosceptic cause?

Substantive posts soon, honest. I’ve got a real-world deadline for the 5th, though, so need to prioritise.

Georgia, Russia, the EU and future UK foreign policy

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Russian troops heading to GeorgiaYesterday’s Observer was on really rather good form, with a decent long article amply demonstrating the human cost – easy to forget when trying to work out the wider geopolitical remifications:

“They sifted out villagers with Georgian surnames, immediately executing all teenage boys. Nugzari Jashashvili, 65, was returning home across the fields when he saw gunmen approach the house of his neighbour, Gela Chikladze, 50. ‘They cut his throat,’ Jashashvili said.”

I’m focussing on the politics, but that’s not to say that this is just an interesting intellectual exercise in trying to predict the future of Eurasian relations. People have been killed in untold numbers in Georgia and South Ossetia, both by the Georgian and Russian armies and by bands of roving maniacs with guns, loosely fighting in what they see as the interest of one side or the other. There has been ethnic cleansing. People continue to die. The death toll may be unknown, but it is in the thousands.

Further on, a good think piece from Neil Acherson, and a moderately sensible editorial that makes a couple of interesting arguments:

“One crucial difference between the current East-West confrontation and the Cold War is that, this time, the economic ties binding the two sides are stronger. Russia needs access to Western markets; the West – and Europe in particular – needs Russian oil and gas. That creates an opportunity for the European Union, the world’s largest single market, to play a moderating role, steering the conversation away from military grandstanding and towards economic negotiation…

“Such aggression must not be rewarded. But Cold War-style brinkmanship will not make Russia’s neighbours safer. It will only reinforce the Kremlin’s view that small states are pawns in a strategic game. The best guarantee of security and peace in Europe since the end of the Cold War has been economic integration, achieved through the EU. It is Brussels, not Washington, that stands the best chance of persuading Moscow to change its ways.”

Today this is followed up by a piece on Comment is Free by Lib Dem MEP Graham Watson, again making the case for the EU as peacebroker:

“Europe is the only player that can be seen as an honest broker… Europe’s initial ambivalence might prove the unlikely key to its success. Post-Soviet member states are more inclined to lay blame for the conflict at Russia’s door; others, including Italy, have expressed an opposing view. By acknowledging that there are different opinions over responsibility for this conflict, the EU can better adopt a position of neutrality in its negotiations.”

Yes, Watson may be partisan, but I can’t do anything other than agree 100% with him on this:

Playing to the gallery of populist opinion is short-sighted but inevitable at this point in America’s election cycle. But not all EU member states have resisted that temptation either. Notably, Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, and the Conservative leader, David Cameron, have engaged in a race to the bottom with each determined to use tougher, more anti-Russian rhetoric than the other. It is an unedifying spectacle that proves their mutual lack of suitability for the job that they are really squabbling over.

For reasons best known to himself, Miliband has been baiting Moscow for months in a series of vaguely populist soundbytes that have been highly critical of the Kremlin, further escalating the ongoing UK/Russia tensions that have been on the up since before the Litvinenko affair. Cameron… Well, what to make of Cameron? Thus far he’s rarely bothered making much of an effort when it comes to foreign affairs, far happier to score easy points at home. But his Tbilisi trip – coming as it has after the overly-extended decision to pull the Tory MEPs out of the EPP group (against their will) and his half-hearted attempt to build an alliance with the Czech Republic to push EU reform down an ill-defined new path – has nudged me right to the brink of declaring Cameron a man with no sense of the realities of international relations and foreign diplomacy.

Hell, with people like Cameron and Miliband potentially in charge of the UK’s foreign policy, I say bring on an EU-based common foreign policy as soon as possible. When it comes to The Great Game, we can’t risk having second-rate minds with no concept of history at the helm. Why are we still allowing Cameron and Miliband to go around kicking the hornet’s nest when a collective effort is so vital? Because just as it is not in the EU’s interest to alienate Russia thanks to Moscow’s control of so many vital energy supplies, it is not in Britain‘s either. Come on – this is Britain we’re talking about. We used to be good at this stuff. We didn’t get such a vast Empire by making stupid statements and shaking our fists at people – we got it through a combination of overwhelming military force and backed up with insanely good intelligence and expert diplomacy. We no longer have the overwhelming military force – which makes diplomacy and intelligence all the more vital. Miliband and Cameron, in their Georgia statements, appear to possess neither.

And now for a question, the answer to which I genuinely can’t work out. Considering that the Council of Europe exists to promote democracy, justice and the rule of law, contains all EU member states, plus every other European state with an interest in this affair – Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia – and, most importantly, both Russia and Georgia, why isn’t it the CoE rather than the EU that is taking the lead here?

Oil and gas pipelines in the Caucasus

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Over the last few days, my post linking the Georgia / Russia dispute over South Ossetia into the politics of energy supply has received a sizable amount of traffic, largely thanks to the funky pipeline maps I dug out. As such, I thought I’d try and get some more detail and – thanks to the University of Texas’ superb online map resource, now I’ve found an ideal one. It dates from 2001, so is slightly out of date, but still – it gives a rather good idea of what’s at stake in the entire Caspian / Black Sea region – as well as showing just why Georgia’s so important. Click on the image below to have a look at the full-sized version (Warning – it’s 2.5 megs, so not good for dial-up…)

Black and Caspian Sea oil and gas pipelines

The EU’s Caucasion lessons

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So, despite the apparent truce following Moscow’s insanely over-the-top response to Georgia’s silly South Ossetian venture, it sounds like Russia’s still “peacekeeping” in Georgian territory. This is otherwise known as “invading a sovereign nation just for the hell of it”.

Here’s a handy solution to all our problems: Georgia – stop playing the victim, you brought it on yourself; Russia – stop acting like a dick.

Meanwhile, the possibility of a common EU foreign policy becomes more remote by the hour. Which idiot was it who thought that an EU Foreign Minister and diplomatic service was a good idea again? If we can’t agree among ourselves, how the hell are we going to convince other world powers?

Eastern Europe used to be the Soviet Union’s buffer zone against the West; it’s now become the West’s buffer-zone against Russia. Unsurprisingly, those countries that make up said buffer-zone aren’t best pleased – especially when they see so little constructive action from the West when a country they consider one of their own is being bullied by the Russians. Because now the ex-Warsaw Pact EU member states are firmly supporting Georgia while many Western European states, keen not to piss off Moscow, are treading more carefully. The fault-lines within the EU – that have been there ever since 2004′s expansion thanks to the continued failure to come up with new post-enlargement rules and regulations – are becoming painfully apparent.

I’ve long been saying that EU relations with Russia are one of the Union’s most pressing concerns. They seem to be becoming more so. If the EU can’t agree a solution to this – or at least a unified approach – then the potential for disaster is immense. Russia will be pissed off. Georgia will be pissed off. The former Warsaw Pact EU member states will be pissed off. Europe’s only non-Russian energy supply route will be jeopardised. And the EU’s impotence on the world stage will be painfully apparent to all.

And, while the EU dithers on the sidelines, the people of Georgia and South Ossetia are still hiding from tanks, ducking from jets, and picking through the rubble to recover their shattered belongings and their dead. A situation that requires quick action has been allowed to continue unchecked in part thanks to the wasted time of trying to find a common European solution. Nice one, guys.

This is why the EU needs to decide – collectively and decisively – what it is for. Episodes like this one – following so closely on the heels of the disunited front put up over Kosovo’s independence – show that one thing the EU is definitely not for is collective foreign diplomacy. So let’s give up on the idea already. It’s getting embarrassing.

Update: Yup. This pretty much sums it up:

“at every level, Europe appears to be in the thick of events, doing its best to stop the bloodshed. But, on closer inspection, this is the traditional sort of European activity: grand proposals, the clocking of plenty of frequent flyer air miles, yet little of substance.”

Georgia: Why?

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So, now that Georgia seems to have withdrawn from South Ossetia in the face of the overwhelming force of Russia’s displeasure, the question has to be asked: how on earth did they think they were going to be able to get away with it?

As has been frequently mentioned over the last few days, Georgia has been trying to join NATO of late – and had it done so already, NATO may well have had to come to her aid when Russia started launching airstrikes. But why would NATO want such a small, impoverished country with a track record of more or less continuous political corruption since independence, even since the Rose Revolution supposedly ushered in a new age of democratic accountability back in 2003?

Georgia pipelinesThe map to the left may indicate why. And yes this is all part of my slowly developing geopolitics of European energy supply theory of relations between Russia and the west (see also theories about Armenia and Serbia – and a denial from Gazprom executive Alexander Medvedev (no relation)). Because, you see, the proposed Nabucco pipeline – designed pretty much exclusively to bypass Russian control over European natural gas supplies by providing an alternate, non-Russian route from the gas fields of Central Asia – is, in part, intended to be supplied by pipelines that run right through Georgia.

Proposed Nabucco pipeline routeThe recent military action has already caused alarm about existing oil and gas supplies (with a nice overview of the current situation from Reuters). But check the map to the left – the proposed route of the Nabucco pipeline, designed pretty much exclusively to prevent Russia from being able to play politics with European energy supply, as has already happened in Ukraine and elsewhere – including, ahem… Georgia (and again).

Nabucco - the missing linkFor more on Nabucco’s significance, check out this handy report (warning, PDF), which contains the handy graphic to the left, demonstrating how Nabucco is intended to be “the missing link” between the giant gas sources of Central Asia and the dwindling gas supplies/rising demand of Europe (all numbers in billions of cubic metres).

Gas supply routes into EuropeAnd so it should all begin to come clear. The West wants Georgia for its strategic value as one of the links in the Caucasian energy chain – the only route from Central Asia to Europe that doesn’t involve passing through less than reliable countries like Russia or Iran. The only supply route for non-European natural gas that will not be under Russian control (as can be seen in the map to the left) – and a direct competitor to Russia’s own planned Blue Stream pipeline.

Georgia, meanwhile, knowing her own strategic importance, seems merely to have overplayed her hand and acted too soon – perhaps assuming that her new Western partners (most of whom have funded the country’s existing pipelines via the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) would be quicker to protect their investment, perhaps assuming that Russia under Medvedev would be slower to act about such things than Russia under Putin. This despite Medvedev being the former chairman of Russian state energy giant Gazprom, the owner of a third of the world’s gas supplies, and the man responsible for the 2006 price hike on Georgian energy supplies.

It’s hard, then, not to think that Georgia’s been rather stupid about this whole affair. Most NATO member states, so keen on the concept of self-determination, are hardly going to look too favourably on forcing a breakaway region to step in line – especially after so many of them have so recently backed Kosovo’s independence. Plus, of course, South Ossetia is largely just rocks and mountains with very little in the way of value. Why not just let them go their own way? They’ve been causing trouble ever since the fall of the USSR – if they want independence so much, then it’s good riddance to bad rubbish, surely?

So, has anyone managed to come up with a reasonable explanation for Georgia getting involved in such a stupid fight? Fistful has had a couple of stabs, but I still can’t see how the Georgian government was this dumb…

Update: See also the map below, which provides a broader regional context along with greater detail – click for (very) big:

Black and Caspian Sea oil and gas pipelines

More Russian energy blackmail

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I told you that Ukraine was just a warning shot… Looks like the Czech Republic’s decision to host that US missile shield has really ticked off the Kremlin. Because now the flow of oil from Russia appears to be slowing down.

This is one to which a great deal of attention should be paid (but which will almost certainly be almost entirely overlooked, just as with the various Russian pipeline machinations in Serbia over the last couple of years have been largely ignored by the mainstream press). With energy prices rocketing and Europe’s own supplies of fossil fuels almost spent, how Russia chooses to use its dominance of the European energy market is cause for grave concern. Sod the Lisbon Treaty – the threat from Russia is by far the biggest problem facing the EU, both in the short and long terms. Loss of sovereignty via transferring power to Brussels? How about loss of sovereignty thanks to Moscow increasingly being able to pull the plug on our national economies on a whim?

NATO, Russia and Europe

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Hunting around for a handy overview of just what’s been happening at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, depending on who you read you’ll get some wildly different ideas. I’ve been confused for much of the morning. Here’s a brief indication of why:

Der Spiegel‘s “Germany Puts the Brakes on US Expansion Plans” is countered by the International Herald Tribune‘s “NATO backs U.S. missile defense plan for Europe”

EU Referendum‘s claim that “NATO has thrown Ukraine and Georgia to the bear. President Bush’s attempts to put them on track to future and very distant membership of NATO has failed” is then contradicted by Radio Free Europe‘s report that “pro-NATO forces in Ukraine and Georgia celebrated the announcement, which offered stronger-than-expected support for their entry bids”

Repeat for pretty much every issue under discussion at the summit (for which, see this very handy round-up).

People always like to look for tangible, obvious outcomes from these things. But this is international diplomacy. Worse than that, it’s strategic military international diplomacy where all but one of the permanent members of the UN’s Security Council are involved (and we know how infrequently that lot manage to get along). Making compromises left, right and centre – leading to a stalemate in which, well, the status quo has largely been maintained – was the only sensible course of action. The thing was always going to end up a waste of time and money.

NATO flagBut the real fun is that despite the fact that NATO is now overseeing operations in Afghanistan (that well-known North Atlantic power) and looking to a more global role, this summit has made one thing increasingly apparent: the Cold War may have ended, but NATO’s principal opponent remains Russia.

Pretty much every compromise on the European front, every bit of backing down, appears to have been done to placate the Kremlin – because the principle areas to which NATO is looking to expand its influence (largely under the prompting of the US) lie in former communist countries, be it Ukraine and Georgia or Croatia and Albania.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, there’s been a growing tension between Russia and the West in recent years – from ex-FSB men assassinated in London to the resumption of patrols by Russian nuclear bombers through the vendetta against the British Council in Moscow. Then there’s the war of words with Belarus, Europe’s oft-forgotten fanatically pro-Moscow wildcard (a country that misses the USSR so much its secret police are still called the KGB and there are constant rumours that it is planning to formally merge with Russia), cyber-warfare against Estonia, and the ongoing standoff over Kosovo’s independence. Even the EU’s (and NATO’s) difficult relationship with Turkey is getting caught up with the Russian situation thanks to the Russo-Turkish partnership in the Bluestream and Nabucco pipelines, both of which are helping to make Europe increasingly reliant on Russian energy supplies.

The relationship with Russia, in other words, increasingly seems to dominate all European diplomacy. Where during the Cold War the presence of the USSR may have ensured that western Europe and the EU was operating under the constant fear of nuclear attack, Moscow’s then lack of engagement in western European affairs allowed everyone to get on much as they pleased. Since the end of the Cold War – and especially since Putin came to power – Moscow’s long-sought-after engagement with the West has if anything caused even more problems.

During the Cold War it was America who stood guard and kept watch, now Europe (both the EU and non-EU countries) has to be constantly on the alert for far more subtle Russian encroachments than columns of Red Army troops or falling H-bombs – encroachments largely economic, and mostly achieved through that strange form of diplomacy at which Putin so excels: smiling with fangs.

With such a large, unpredictable neighbour to the east – especially one with the ability to shut down a sizable chunk of the European economy on a whim (as has already happened to Ukraine) – little wonder there seem to have been few major advances at this latest NATO summit. In fact, I can barely see the point of holding these things until Russian attitudes to the West shift further in the direction of friendly cooperation (no signs of that any time soon) – because Russia’s never going to accept public humiliation, which is how the current regime seems to see any kind of outside involvement in what remains of the bear’s sphere of influence.

So the real points of interest after such standoffs between Russia and the West are never going to be the big issues. We’re not suddenly going to have a Kremlin change of heart on any of the major issues any time soon. And if and when such a change of heart comes, it’s certainly not going to come at one of these big public summits – far too humiliating. Where such shifts in Russian attitudes – either pro-engagement or heading towards hostility – are first going to be seen is in the details. The precise wording, the precise terms of any diplomatic agreement between Russia and the EU, US, NATO or individual European countries – the small print that the journalists rarely have time to scan in their rush to hit deadlines and get an angle that gives the subs a good shot at an interesting headline – that’s where we’ll first spot the changes when they come.

These summits are, in other words, little better than MacGuffins. The real diplomacy is going on off the radar, with lots of little standoffs in places like Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Central Asia.

NATO may well be starting to look globally – but Europe needs to do the same to keep tabs on just what its unpredictable neighbour is up to, because Russia has more ability than any other state to screw Europe over. If Russia’s got its fingers in a lot of pies, we need to be keeping an eye on all of them, and not get distracted by the occasional fuss over the more obvious ones like Ukraine and Georgia (both of which have had high-profile popular pro-democracy uprisings in recent years, which are always of appeal to the press). To do so would be to fall for the oldest trick in the book.

“The new stage… the stage of totalitarianism”

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Shutting down an entire university due to breaches of fire regulations would sound a little harsh at the best of times.

When the university in question is St Petersburg’s European University, however, suspicions are naturally raised – not least thanks to numerous EU-funded courses, including one on election monitoring. We are, lest we forget, just a few short weeks before Russia’s controversial presidential elections.

Little wonder, then, that some among Russia’s isolated opposition are digging out the colourful rhetoric:

Maxim Reznik, the head of the St. Petersburg branch of Russia’s liberal Yabloko faction, said the real reason for the order was an election monitoring course funded by the European Union.

“No doubt, it’s about politics,” Reznik said. “Fire inspections is just an excuse. It’s another example that the authoritarian regime is going to the new stage, to the stage of totalitarianism.”

The suspension of the university’s activities comes amid tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia’s March 2 presidential elections. An election monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has refused to send observers to the vote because of restrictions on their activities — an announcement likely to strengthen Western concerns about democracy in Russia.

When the university’s closure comes the very same day that Moscow announces it will maintain favourable gas prices for the pro-Russian dictatorship in Belarus while threatening to cut off supplies to the EU-leaning Ukraine, it’s very hard not to see the university’s closure as part of a coordinated campaign designed to tell Ukraine to look east, not west if it knows what’s good for it…

Update: Ahem… BBC News – Russia in Ukraine missile threat

And you thought Haliburton was bad?

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Rather than wait until after the elections, Serbia’s already signed that gas pipeline deal with Russia, effectively scuppering the EU-backed alternative.

Now we’re going to end up with a president of Russia, Medvedev, who’ll not only be the former head of Gazprom (the company that controls 97% of Russia’s vast gas reserves, and has shown no compunction about using threats of supply cut-offs to gain political advantage – or to act on them) but also have complete dominance of the supply chain through to continental Europe.

Time for Europe to say bye bye to independence.

Serbian elections: why you should care

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Monday sees the first round of the Serbian presidential elections – and they could well prove vital for the future of Europe. If power shifts we could all, to coin a phrase, end up exponentially screwed.

But surely, you might think, pro-Western sitting President Boris Tadić is going to keep his job? After all, since he got the gig in 2004 he’s been working hard to ensure that Serbia acts a little more civilised, helped to oversee Montenegran independence with little apparent ill-humour, hosted the Council of Europe’s meeting of ministers, last summer was awarded the European Prize for Political Culture (sweetly donating the prize money to a hospital in Kosovo), and has repeatedly declared his hope that one day Serbia will be able to join the EU. Yes, he may be against Kosovan independence, which has miffed some international observers, but that’s because he hopes for reconciliation with that much put-upon province, not to finish the job started by Slobodan MiloÅ¡ević. At the same time, Serbia’s economy’s been growing by around 6% a year under his tenure, and its GDP has doubled since 2003 – unemployment may still be high at around 20%, but it’s an improving situation.

Sounds like he’s doing pretty well, right? After seeing his country devastated by nationalist and religious violence, what better route than democratic liberal internationalism, encouraging economic growth, and increasing ties to the country’s biggest trading partner (the EU)? What Serb could possibly contemplate voting for anyone else – especially anyone tainted by association with the violence of the recent past – when that way lies a return to violence, hatred and economic disaster?

But the thing is, the Balkans seem to have a high proportion of idiots.

What else can explain the fact that Tomislav Nikolić – a former Vice President under MiloÅ¡ević, a man who’s only running for President because his party’s proper leader is currently on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Hague – looks to have a very good chance of winning? (And this isn’t the first time – in the 2004 elections, Nikolić beat Tadić in the first round…)

To add to all that, some suspect Nikolić of being involved in the assassination of pro-Western Serbian Prime Minister Zoran ĐinÄ‘ić (Tadić’s predecessor as leader of the Democratic Party) in March 2003, and there have been several calls for him to be prosecuted for war crimes due to suspected involvement in the massacre of villagers in Antin, Croatia, in August 1991 (a massacre Nikolić himself claims never happened).

Oh, and Nikolić’s preferred option for Serbia’s future? To join with those bastions of human rights Russia and Belarus to form a post-communist superpower. (Not as mad an idea as you might think: over the last decade or so Russia and Belarus – Europe’s last dictatorship, and a country so fond of Soviet times that its secret police are still called the KGB – have held numerous largely unreported discussions about just such a move.)

With the Kosovo situation as uncertain as it’s been since the crisis of 1999 with the victory of former ethnic Albanian guerrilla leader Hashim Thaçi in the elections there two months ago, a tight election result in Serbia on Monday could – if the second round fails to provide a clear winner – very easily spark more of the protests and violence for which the region has become known.

While 2000′s pro-democracy anti-MiloÅ¡ević protests were both non-violent and successful (and in turn inspired similar movements in places like Georgia, Ukraine and Belarus), the popularity of Nikolić amongst Serbia’s fascists could easily lead to serious trouble.

If Nikolić wins, of course, the situation would naturally be infinitely worse. With Thaçi elected in Kosovo and Nikolić in Serbia, we’d have the most obvious indication yet that the Kosovo question is boiling down to a clash between the perpetrators of the late-90s genocide and its victims. (A couple of days ago, Thaçi addressed the UN (despite Serbian protests) declaring Kosovo’s readiness for statehood; the same day, Tadić (desperately trying to prove his nationalist credentials ahead of the elections) warned that Serbia was prepared to “act” to protect Kosovo’s Serbian minority.)

A clash over Kosovan independence would present the EU with one of its toughest challenges yet.

First, there’s the memory of how the EU singularly failed to act to prevent the Yugoslavian civil wars (so much for the EU bringing peace and stability to Europe…) – and then, of course, the even worse crime of dithering during the Kosovo crisis of 1999, leading to a delay in intervention that enabled MiloÅ¡ević and his cohorts to slaughter thousands of ethnic Albanians and Muslims throughout the region.

And then, of course, there’s the real problem – as so often these days – Russia.

Yep, Putin (who has repeatedly expressed his disapproval of Kosovan independence and promised that Russia will block such a move in the UN – probably thanks to the precedent Kosovo’s independence could set) is backing Nikolić – all part of a fresh Balkan power play that, surprise surprise, revolves not just around sticking two fingers up at the US and EU (both of whom support Kosovo’s right to self-determination), but also energy supplies.

On Friday, a new pipeline deal between Russia and Bulgaria was announced – a gas pipeline planned to pass through Serbia on its way to the EU. A pipeline due to be run by Russian energy giant Gazprom. Who’s boss just happens to be, erm… Putin’s designated heir and (almost certainly) Russia’s next President, Dmitry Medvedev. To secure the pipeline deal (potentially worth a lot to Serbia’s energy-poor economy) Russia is insisting that the country sell a 51% stake in its state-owned energy company NIS for a knock-down price – to a Gazprom subsidiary…

This pipeline deal – if a more pro-Russian Serbian President happened to take charge to usher it through – would in turn effectively ruin the chances of the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline ever taking off.

Designed as a way to break Russia’s ever-tightening grip on EU energy supplies, Nabucco is planned to open up access to gas from Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Egypt and Syria – all via a route that avoids Russian territories, and thus the threat of supplies being cut off on a whim, as happened to Ukraine two years ago (and as was threatened again in the run-up to the Ukrainian elections back in October). With the Russian-backed pipeline running on a similar route via Turkey, people who know more about this than I seem to think that, like the Highlander, there can be only one.

So, even ignoring the possible instability and potential renewed violence that a nationalist/Nikolić victory could bring to the Balkans; even ignoring the possible ramifications that could in turn have for the stability of the Caucasus; even ignoring the inevitable clash between the US, EU and Russia over Kosovo in the UN as and when moves towards independence become more concrete… the outcome of these Serbian presidential elections could well decide whether Russia manages to tighten its hold on Europe’s energy supplies, and thus its whole economy. Even, potentially, whether Russia is able to hold the EU to ransom in precisely the way it has Ukraine, using its near-monopoly to affect everything from trade agreements and foreign policy to elections.

And don’t think Britain’s safe from this thanks to North Sea gas. Yields there are not only falling rapidly (by 10% in 2004 and a further 12% in 2005), meaning we are increasingly having to look abroad for supplies (Britain has already become a net importer of oil in the last couple of years), but also Russia and Gazprom – the holders of the world’s largest natural gas reserves – are already targeting the UK market.

This is a situation that, if the Nabucco pipeline is scuppered by a Russo-Serbian deal, can only get worse. As I say, depending on the outcome of the Serbian elections, we could end up exponentially screwed.