The Russian Federation is the biggest supplier of gas for the European Union. But the amount of Russian gas the EU consumes has been falling since the 1980s, that is from 4/5 to the current 2/5. The problem revealed by the Russia-Ukraine gas war is the disunity of the European market. On one side, there are enormous Western European concerns with diverse portfolios of suppliers; on the other side smaller countries like Slovakia or Bulgaria are fully dependent on one supplier. For Moscow gas is connected to politics. The European Union however, is trying to make the energy business apolitical. Pierre Noël, energy expert of the European Committee for International Relations, thinks that regarding this the interests of the two sides are contrary to each other. “An apolitical gas relationship would be catastrophic from the point of view of the Russian government. Russia and Europe would get into the same relationship as Canada and the USA or Norway and the European Union.” He adds that it’s precisely the politicization of the gas business that is the Russian government’s main strategy. That’s why, according to Noël, diplomatic attempts to solve the European issue with Russian gas are fated to failure.
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