Page 11 - bne_newspaper_May_11_2018b

Central Europe
May 11, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 11
Poland opens proceedings against Gazprom’s "consortium" over Nord Stream 2
IntelliNews Pro
Poland’s competition authority UOKiK has charged Gazprom and six other companies linked to the construction of Nord Stream 2 on May 9, saying the companies keep jointly implementing the controversial project despite having been banned from forming a consortium to do so.
Poland is eyeing the Nord Stream 2 project – which will allow Russia to pump some 110bn cubic meters of gas to Western Europe annually – with utmost suspicion. Ukraine and the Baltic states also op- pose the pipeline, fearing that it would cut off Kyiv and Warsaw from billions of revenues from Russian gas transit through their respective territories.
The pipeline will also solidify Russia's dominance on the European energy market, and compete with the US shipments of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe, the eastern countries say.
Dependence on Russian gas supplies is seen as an important vulnerability by those countries that fear Moscow might use Nord Stream 2 to manipu- late supplies to the CEE region for political gains.
“The Office of Competition and Consumer Protec- tion has initiated proceedings against Gazprom and five international entities responsible for financing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline,”
UOKiK said in a statement.
The entities in question are E.ON and BASF’s subsidiary Wintershall of Germany, Engie of France, as well as OMV of Austria and the British-Dutch oil and gas major Shell.
“UOKiK suspects that the parties to the transac- tion, despite the withdrawal of the notification of concentration, jointly implement the project,” it added, referring to Gazprom and partners’ 2016 application with the Polish authority to form a joint venture to build Nord Stream 2.
The application was withdrawn upon Poland’s opposition to the creation of the joint venture.
“At the time, in the opinion of UOKiK, Gazprom had a dominant position in gas supplies to Poland, and the [creation of the joint venture] could
lead to further strengthening of the company's negotiating power towards recipients in our country,” the Polish competition authority said.
Poland has also been pushing the European Commission to put up a fiercer opposition to Nord Stream 2, but a recently leaked document from the EC showed the EU executive’s initially hardline approach to Gazprom’s monopolist practices in Poland and CEE have changed over time in favour of finding a settlement.
That, Poland claims, is indicative of Brussels’ willing- ness to let the Russian company off the hook with- out serious consequences, a mediocre effect of an investigation that the Commission kicked off in 2015.
At the time, the Commission charged Gazprom with using its market dominance to overcharge CEE countries and blocking cross-border gas sales in order to segment the CEE market to control what the Commission said was “excessive” pricing.