Latest Articles about Europe
The Polish Revelation for Russia – and the Latin American Dream
Two distinct and remarkably dissimilar international events developed in parallel in Russian foreign policy over the last two weeks: rapprochement with Poland and networking in Latin America. The latter started with Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin’s, visit to Venezuela and continued with President, Dmitry Medvedev’s, official... MORE
Surgut Misfires Once More Against Hungarian MOL
For the second consecutive year, Russia’s Surgutneftegaz has failed to crash the door of the Hungarian MOL’s annual general meeting of its shareholders and the board of directors. The April 29 event seems set to consolidate MOL’s defenses against such predatory takeover tactics. MOL’s oil-refining... MORE
AGRI: First Ever LNG Project in the Black Sea
Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Romanian are jointly launching a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, designated as the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector (AGRI). The three governments regard their project as an element in the EU-planned Southern Corridor for Caspian gas to Europe.AGRI envisages transporting Azerbaijani gas by pipeline to... MORE
Ruling Coalition to Expand Following Approval by Constitutional Court
The Ukrainian constitutional court on April 8 approved the formation of the pro-presidential coalition in parliament in early March. The main controversy was over the right of individual people’s deputies to join the coalition against the will of their caucuses. The court decided that deputies... MORE
Mistral Case Presages Russian Shopping Spree for Western Military Technology: Part Two
Two latest developments in the Mistral affair have changed the terms of the debate and, by the same token, made it difficult to preclude a NATO discussion on this issue by using its agenda-setting powers of high office.The first development is Moscow’s declared condition that... MORE
Mistral Debate Unavoidable in NATO: Part One
The view that NATO has no business discussing French arms deals with Russia is far from being a consensus position. The proposed sale of French Mistral-class warships –an offensive power-projection capability– to Russia is testing the laissez-faire approach to arms sales by NATO countries to... MORE
Kyiv Considers Unpopular Measures to Qualify for Additional Loans
As an International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission completed its work in Ukraine on April 2, Kyiv hopes to secure additional loans. The cabinet of Prime Minister, Mykola Azarov, badly needs such loans not only in order to fill gaps in the state budget, but also... MORE
Oil “Export” Duties: a Peculiarity of the Russian-Led Customs Union
The Russian government is apparently moving to operationalize the nominal “union state” with Belarus through a process of economic absorption. Accession to the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union is not protecting Belarus against this process.Russia’s introduction of export duties on refined oil products and “petrochemical raw material”... MORE
Belarus Sues Russia in the CIS Economic Court
In a precedent-setting move, Belarus is suing Russia in the CIS Economic Court. The case at hand concerns Russian export duties on refined oil products and “petrochemical raw materials” to Belarus. The procedure could open the way for recourse to the CIS Economic Court on... MORE
Ukrainian Government Examines Belarusian Model of Gas Trade With Russia
Ukraine’s newly elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, and the new government clamored for low-priced Russian gas from their first day in office. As an opening gambit they called for a price similar to that paid by Belarus; or in the worst case somewhat higher at $200... MORE