Putin’s ace card

Attempts by Germany and France to secure emergency gas supplies from Russia illustrate just how reliant Europe has become on the Kremlin to fulfil its energy needs. With global energy prices hitting record highs, there is a growing awareness that Russian President Vladimir Putin is actively encouraging price hikes in a bid to win European approval for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, whose construction was completed last month. As Treasury minister Lord Agnew of Oulton told Parliament earlier this week, spiralling costs on the international energy markets have had more to do with a “geopolitical move” by Russia than to shortages.

The current crisis should serve as a wake-up call to European leaders who have consistently ignored warnings from successive American administrations that the Nord Stream 2 project is a calculated ploy by Mr Putin to control Europe’s future energy needs. Critics of the project have argued that it will increase European dependence on Russian gas while at the same time damaging the Ukrainian economy, which relies on the transit fees it receives from allowing Moscow to ship gas through pipelines that pass through Ukrainian territory. Russia has halted gas supplies to Ukraine on several occasions.

Now the rest of Europe finds itself at Mr Putin’s mercy, a situation that need not have arisen had its leaders paid more attention to Moscow’s motives in building Nord Stream 2, which is designed to ship gas directly from Russia to Germany. Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, who are behind efforts to resolve the crisis by holding talks with Russia, will find that any deal struck with the Kremlin will be on Mr Putin’s terms, not theirs.