Latest Articles about Europe
Ukraine: Largest Ailing Bank Nadra Remains in Limbo
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has rejected the government plan to liquidate Nadra, the largest among Ukraine’s ailing banks. The only potential investor interested in Nadra, energy and chemical tycoon Dmytro Firtash, failed to persuade the NBU to sell Nadra. Nadra remains in limbo... MORE
Nord Stream: a Project Behind the Times (Commentary)
The Nord Stream project is based on assumptions dating back to 2005 and earlier, but failing to reflect more recent developments, including those that are now revolutionizing the gas trade.When Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schroeder (Russian President and German Chancellor respectively at the time) concluded... MORE
Nord Stream Project Faces Hard Slog Against the Tide
Nord Stream, the gas pipeline project on the Baltic seabed from Russia to Germany, has cleared the final legal requirement, obtaining the construction permit from the state administration agency of the Southern Finland region (Financial Times Deutschland, February 15).The governments of Finland, Denmark, and Sweden... MORE
Yushchenko Facilitates Yanukovych’s Election and Buries the Orange Revolution
Two major myths promoted by President Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential elections were that there was no difference in policies between the two main candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko, and that both were “pro-Russian.” These myths helped defeat Tymoshenko by 3 percent in... MORE
Ukrainian President-Elect Yanukovych Resurrects Gas Consortium Scheme
Throughout the electoral campaign, Ukrainian President-elect Viktor Yanukovych promised to seek a special deal with Russia on natural gas: Russia to supply Ukraine with gas at discounted prices and, in return, be allowed to take over an ownership share in Ukraine’s gas transit system, which... MORE
Franco-Russian Naval Sale is a Challenge to NATO
NATO is being tested, with “its future at stake,” not so much in Afghanistan as the line recently went, but rather in Brussels itself and in the Alliance’s most influential capitals. The latest among these tests –one that the Alliance seems only determined to side-step–... MORE
La France D’Abord: Paris First to Capitalize on Russian Military Modernization
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has approved the sale of one Mistral-class warship to Russia; and France is now considering Moscow’s request for three more of that class of helicopter-carrier and amphibious-assault ship.The Russian Navy’s First Deputy Chief of Staff, Vice-Admiral Oleg Burtsev, broke the news... MORE
Shtokman Gas Project Postponed: Implications for Russia, Europe and the US
On February 5, the Gazprom-led Shtokman Development Company and operator of the supergiant gas project in the Russian Arctic, announced that investment decisions and field development are being postponed. The investment decision for field work is being rescheduled, from the end of 2010 to late... MORE
Yanukovych Faces Uphill Struggle for Control of Ukraine, Despite Victory in Presidential Election
As expected, opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych has won the February 7 presidential election runoff. Unlike in 2004, when Yanukovych lost a controversial poll to Viktor Yushchenko and his supporters were accused of large-scale election fraud, this time international observers said the election was free and... MORE
Can Nabucco be Married Off to Gazprom?
Unexpectedly, the US State Department’s Special Envoy for Eurasian energy affairs, Richard Morningstar, seems to embrace the idea of allowing Gazprom to become a user of the Nabucco pipeline. Speaking in Washington at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank associated with left-leaning constituencies in... MORE