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Russia turning the screws on Poland?
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| From the SMH - POLAND has accused Germany of conspiring with Russia to threaten central Europe in a manner that recalled the deal between Hitler and Stalin to carve up Poland before World War II. ... The target was the deal between Berlin and Moscow last year to bypass eastern and central Europe with a new pipeline under the Baltic Sea linking Russia directly with Germany ... Germany and Russia made the deal before last year's German election which the then chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, lost. He has since been given a lucrative post overseeing the pipeline linking the Russian port of Wyborg and the town of Greifswald in north-eastern Germany. Well, it sounds like Schroeder was willing to make some money by screwing over Poland. Not the first time this has happened, but it is the most blatent for a long, long time. So we have Russia created this deal this so it can exert more pressure on Poland, both because Poland has joined the EU and become rather pro-West (even if relations between it and Germany are sometimes frosty) and because so many of Russia's former client states in the USSR have recently broken away from their kleptocratic, authoritarian (and most definately pro-Russia) ruling parties and installed European and US friendly governments - think Ukraine and Georgia, and the attempts at change going on in Belarus. But the Russian government will probably get away with it, because Western Europe won't complain (think of all that cheaper oil making its way in), the US has many more pressing items concerning Russia at the moment to make waves over this (think Iran, the Sudan, etc) and its fellow Eastern European neighbours don't have the economic, militaristic or political clout to stop it from happening. I predict that we will see mounting pressure by the Russians on Eastern Europe, partly to try and cash in on the economic success that E.Europe is having, and partly to try and re-establish a political base from which it can meet the US and EU on more equal terms. And as long as Russia can keep the oil coming into W.Europe, and keep the US busy with other problems around the world, not much will happen to stop it. But I'm sure someone will blame Bush for it all. |
| Posted by Anonymous at 10:14 PM |
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