Europe makes right of way: participants of gas market talk about Russia less and less

While Gazprom is setting anti-records on gas supplies to Europe and is looking for a new strategy of working in the region, consumers continue to distance themselves from the monopoly. However, they are less cautious about the attempts of the EU authorities to consolidate market under the Energy Union. Other gas suppliers also make contribution to the feeling of mutual hostility: countries, which Europe usually calls as alternative to Gazprom, for example, Algeria and Iran, are not keen to sell gas to the EU.

Three weeks after Gazprom’s head Alexei Miller described the new European strategy of the company in Berlin, another conference was held there. On the eve of Victory Day (which Europeans celebrate on May 8) East Berlin, pre-hung round with the flags of the anti- Hitler coalition, at the invitation of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, was visited by the deputy head of the European Commission, Maroš Sevcovic, the special envoy of the US State Department on Energy Hokstayn Amos, the Energy Ministers of Azerbaijan and Iran, Natig Aliyev and Bijan Namdar Zangane and an impressive Ukrainian delegation.