Russia-Ukraine Negotiations

Nonetheless, many of Europe’s energy tsars, industrialists and politicians still dream of restoring cheap Russian gas supplies – and are making increasingly public calls for a return to business as usual. Michael Kretschmer, premier of the German state of Saxony, recently called for the destroyed Nord Stream-1 pipeline to be repaired.

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Between 2002 and 2014 as CEO of ENEL, and later of Italy’s other energy giant, ENI, Scaroni signed huge deals with Russia’s Gazprom which made Italy as dependent on Russian has as their northern neighbour Germany. In the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine Scaroni has publicly opposed sanctions on Russia and has argued that Italy needs Russian gas for at least another decade.

‘The ‘business as usual’ crowd led by the likes of [former German chancellor Gerhard] Schroder and Scaroni will be pushing for doing deals on gas flows with Moscow,’ says Alan Riley, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center. ‘It is not too difficult to see the game play. Europe becomes tired of the Russo-Ukrainian war, next winter is cold, China imports more Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and natural gas prices rise across the continent.’

Several EU countries fear Brussels risk opening a Pandora’s box with a new measure that could eventually be used against China and Turkey.