Brussels has forced “Gazprom” to obey, for now – Politico
The European Commission has stated that a soft attitude to the Russian company enough to change her behavior.
Write about it Anka Gursu and Nicholas Hurst in the article “Brussels has forced “Gazprom” to obey, yet,” published on the newspaper’s website Politico.
“Gazprom” intends to avoid antitrust investigation, the EU, and fine, thanks to a deal announced Monday. But this will only happen after the radical concessions that only a few years ago seemed unimaginable.
For settlement of the dispute Russia abandoned its position that “Gazprom” as the Kremlin-controlled company should not be subject to competition rules in the EU. Instead, Gazprom agreed to make significant changes in the historical process of doing business in Central and Eastern Europe, and obeyed the rules of the EU – and even provided their contracts to agents of the EU.
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“We believe that the obligations of “Gazprom” will provide opportunities for the free flow of gas in Central and Eastern Europe at competitive prices,” said Margrethe Vestager, the EU Commissioner for competition issues.
And she made every effort to emphasize that any failure to comply with the terms of the transaction will lead to fines for the company billions of euros.
It’s still not enough for the most ardent critics of a gas giant in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which wanted the company was punished with painful fines.
“But what about the previous periods, when Gazprom made dozens, if not hundreds, of billions using its monopoly in the gas market?” asked Petrus, Austrevicius, Deputy of the Lithuanian Parliament from the Liberal group ALDE.
The announcement Monday was the culmination of a long dispute between Moscow and Brussels. He began after a complaint of Lithuania that Gazprom, which supplied the natural gas the country who have abused their market position, setting too high prices, and forbidding the resale of gas that is not allowed according to EU rules. In General, in its investigation the European Commission has named eight countries.
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All of these countries, once part of the Eastern European Empire, Moscow feared that Gazprom has been used as a political weapon to restore Russian influence.
The Commission raided the offices of “Gazprom” in 2011, launched an investigation in 2012 and opened an antitrust case in 2015.
The risk of “Gazprom” is huge. The Commission may impose a penalty of up to 10 percent of annual turnover – in the case of Gazprom’s 6.8 billion euros at the end of 2015.
But despite the pressure from Central Europe, which demanded to take a tough stance in Brussels had feared to start a war with “Gazprom” at a time when relations between the EU and Russia have been tense due to the military adventurism of Russia in Ukraine.
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As has been said Vestager, the goal was to fix the business methods of “Gazprom” and not revenge.
“We came to the conclusion that for the citizens the most useful thing would be to change the behavior of “Gazprom” in the future,” she said. The goal is to force the market to work, added the Commissioner, “regardless of flag, ownership rights, size of your company.”