Section: The Economist (The United Kingdom)
European energy policy: Only connect
ENERGY, the European Commission believes, should flow freely to and between EU members. So Maros Sefcovic, the energy commissioner, has two adversaries. One is Russia, which is trying to keep its chokehold on gas supplies to eastern Europe. The other is EU national governments and their state-owned companies. They like the clout of national...
Russia’s battered economy: Hardly tottering by
JUDGING by the lack of economic news in Russia’s media, a crisis has arrived. Just as in Soviet days, state television does not report facts, it conceals them. The official picture is dominated by the war in Ukraine (fuelled by America), Ukraine’s economic collapse (ignored by America) and Russia’s achievements in sport, ballet...
Ukraine’s economy: On the edge
THE Ukrainian economy would rather forget 2014. But 2015 may be little better: GDP is still shrinking. Gas payments, defence and support for the hryvnia, which lost half its value in 2014, have bled the government dry. Foreign-currency reserves fell by a quarter in December, leaving just $7.5 billion, equivalent to only five weeks’ worth of...
Ukrainian Bessarabia: Towards the unknown region
THE isolated region of Ukrainian Bessarabia, which is also known as Budjak, has become one of the latest places for Ukraine-watchers to worry about. Many of the inhabitants fear a spread of the war from eastern Ukraine. Geography gives their region great strategic importance, especially if the Russians were ever tempted to try to carve a land...
Gas in Ukraine: On another front
GAS is flowing again from Russia to Ukraine, but blackouts have hit factories and homes. Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, says Ukraine’s independence is compromised by its energy dependence on Russia. Mykhailo Gonchar of the Centre for Global Studies in Kiev claims that in its battle in Ukraine, Russia has opened an energy...
Russia and Ukraine: Putin’s people
Watching from below A GOVERNMENT television channel dubbed Vladimir Putin’s latest state of the nation address “A Message from Above”. Dmitry Kiselev, Mr Putin’s chief propagandist, even likened it to speeches by Roosevelt, Churchill and De Gaulle.Mr Putin’s sermon had both messianic and defensive overtones. He called Crimea a...
Georgia and Russia: Dreams deferred
RUSSIA’S unacknowledged war in Ukraine did not start with the annexation of Crimea. The precedent was set six years earlier, during a five-day war between Russia and Georgia that resulted in Russia’s occupation of the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Unwilling to confront Russia directly, Western leaders instead blamed the...
Moldova’s election: Slouching towards Europe
THE election in Moldova on November 30th was as dirty as could be. Pro-European parties accused the Russian intelligence services of illegally funding their opponents. Just before the poll, the courts banned one pro-Russian party for receiving money from abroad, a move its supporters called abusing the judiciary for political ends. In all...
Charlemagne: Poland’s progress
WHEN Poland joined the European Union in 2004, says Rafal Trzaskowski, its Europe minister, the old members feared it would be “as terrorising as Spain, as arrogant as France” and as keen on opt-outs as the British. Ten years later and they are more likely to come crawling for advice. Helped by large amounts of EU cash, Poland has become an...
Germany and Russia: A new Ostpolitik
Putin wags a finger at Mutti OVER the past year, Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has become the West’s diplomatic shield against Russia’s Vladimir Putin. That is partly because America’s Barack Obama is distracted and weakened by his midterm elections. It is also because nobody else in the European Union has the same...
