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(The Guardian) - Worried that the lights could go out, EU chiefs will press President Vladimir Putin today to agree new rules on future Russian oil and gas supplies, pricing and investment. But Moscow is in no mood to haggle. It has already rejected a proposed international energy charter. And European governments lack a united front. As a result, the meeting, in Sochi on the Black Sea, is unlikely to bring relief to benighted European consumers and businesses. Energy-fuelled tensions between Russia and the west may instead come to a head at the G8 summit in St Petersburg on July 15. Traditionally a staid event, this is shaping up as the diplomatic equivalent of the shootout at the OK Corral - or a wildcatter's oil well brawl. After the US vice-president Dick Cheney's recent anti-Moscow broadside, there is loose talk of a new cold war. Link |
