Putler Descends on Vienna, Bearing Gifts

Austria has always been a pathbreaker when it came to doing business with evil Russians. It was for instance the first Western country to import energy from the former Soviet Union in 1968. As Reuters reports, on occasion of Vladimir Putin's recent visit to Vienna, a long planned gas pipeline project was brought a decisive step closer to becoming reality.

One of the main aims of the new pipeline is to bypass the Ukraine, which would obviously remove a major headache that has plagued Russian gas exports to Europe in the past. Ukrainian governments have notoriously defaulted over and over again on payments for Russian gas deliveries, and whenever Gazprom cuts off deliveries to enforce payment of the accumulated debts, they tend to simply steal the gas that is in transit to European customers. That's just how it is – everybody knows it. Hence the need to circumvent the Ukraine.

Currently there is an additional consideration playing a role – with US influence on the Ukraine having increased significantly after the coup (e.g., Hunter Biden is now on the board of the country's largest gas company) and relations between Russia and the new Ukrainian government less than cordial to put it mildly, interest in establishing an alternative route for Russian gas is even greater than before.

“Austria gave its final approval to a controversial Russian gas pipeline project on Tuesday, defying EU officials and welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin to the neutral country that has been a long-standing energy customer for Moscow.

The chief executives of Russia's Gazprom and Austria's OMV sealed the deal to build a branch of the South Stream gas pipeline to Austria, a staunch defender of the project in the face of opposition from the European Commission.

South Stream, which will cost an estimated $40 billion, is designed to carry Russian gas to the centre of Europe, a continent already dependent on Russia for a third of its gas needs, on a route that bypasses current transit country Ukraine.

The Commission says South Stream as it stands does not comply with EU competition law because it offers no access to third parties. South Stream also counters the EU's policy of diversifying supply sources to reduce dependence on Russia.

But OMV CEO Gerhard Roiss told a news conference after the signing: "Europe needs Russian gas. Europe will need more Russian gas in future because European gas production is falling … I think the European Union understands this, too."

The project has pitted European industry against politicians in Brussels, and divided South Stream supporters – which stretch from Germany through the heavily Russia-dependent central and southeastern Europe – from other EU member states.

On a one-day working visit to Vienna that drew some criticism in the EU, Putin spoke of close business ties to Austria, the first western European country to sign, in 1968, long-term gas supply deals with Moscow. He called Austria an "important and reliable" partner for Russia, which is Austria's third-biggest non-EU trading partner after the United States and Switzerland.

Austrian President Heinz Fischer also defended the South Stream project, saying: "No one can explain to me – and I can't explain to the Austrian people – why a pipeline that crosses EU and NATO countries can't go 50 km into Austria." He said he opposed sanctions against Moscow, but also told Putin Moscow's annexation of Crimea violated international law.

The mood turned jovial when the head of Austria's chamber of commerce reminded Putin that part of Ukraine had belonged to Austria in 1914. "What is that supposed to mean? What are you proposing?" Putin quipped, eliciting laughter from the business elite.

The EU has said it has no criticism of Austria's hosting Putin despite frosty ties with Moscow.

[…]

But some politicians have warned that Putin may try to exploit divisions between friendly EU states, such as neutral Austria with its traditionally good ties to Moscow, and those like Britain that want to take a harder line.

"Obviously … Putin wants to split the European Union. That's nothing new. That's what the Russians always try to do when they are in a corner," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told Austrian broadcaster ORF on Monday.”

Vlad the Terrible and Austrian president Fischer get an earful from the state-owned brass band. We're not sure who the mil-bling-adorned figure behind them is, but he sure looks grim.

(Photo via Reuters)

Well, as far as we know, Putin hasn't given the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria back to Austria on this particular occasion. No problem there – what would Austria do with the pravoseki infesting Lviv?

Carl Bildt meanwhile is evidently hallucinating (Russia is in a 'corner'? That seems a case of projection). Take a moment to check this globalist establishment dude's Wikipedia entry, where we learn among other things that “in 2002, Bildt joined the board of directors of Vostok Nafta, a financial company primarily with holdings in Gazprom. Bildt was a member of the board of independent oil company Lundin Petroleum.” (Lundin Petroleum was allegedly involved in highly questionable activities during the civil war in Sudan). For some reason (as can be seen in his Wikipedia entry), Bildt is these days strenuously opposed to Russia (maybe this has something to do with his Gazprom past; sour grapes for some reason? We can't be sure. Here are details regarding Bildt's views with respect to the Ukrainian crisis).

Our impression is that contrary to what Bildt is saying, the EU, or rather, important parts of the EU, are actually quite happy with using Austria as a go-between to signal to Putin that business with Russia is going to continue as before. The US government is apparently unhappy though – as we learn elsewhere:

“While OMV general director Gerhard Roiss said the South Stream pipeline would "ensure energy security for Europe, particularly for Austria," the US embassy in Vienna launched a thinly veiled attack on the move.

In a statement, it said that trans-Atlantic unity had been essential in "discouraging further Russian aggression" and that the Austrians "should consider carefully whether today's events contribute to that effort."

In a meeting with Austrian president Heinz Fischer, Putin slammed the criticism by saying that "our American friends… want to supply Europe with gas themselves. They do everything to derail this contract…"

As anyone with even an inkling of the games played in geopolitics knows, nothing of this has anything to do with alleged “Russian aggression”, just as the coup in the Ukraine had nothing to do with bringing “freedom” to the people of the Ukraine – even though a great many people in the Ukraine were righteously and justly fed up with the thief/gangster Yanukovich. However, they are now ruled by yet another oligarch-politician, who has in the past himself been a member of various previous kleptocracies in charge of the Ukraine. We doubt therefore that the average Ukrainian will notice any big difference.

Rare Displays of Sanity and Theater of the Absurd

As our friend Andreas van de Kamp over at “Staatsstreich.at” remarked (our translation):

“Austria's government displayed rare signs of sanity. However it had to take pains to hide them, as the other inmates of the EU insane asylum became green in the face from jealousy and informed Vienna that this was just not done: a visit by a gentlemen without a chaperone in sight.

The government did what it usually has difficulty doing: it kept its mouth shut.”

Andreas also pointed out that there has been a strange role reversal on display. Big industrialists are pleading for peace and trade – while the leftist Greens are apparently lusting for war and conflict:

“This mini-drama is currently playing out in all of Europe -  behind closed doors, of course. It is a kind of theater of the absurd, with reversed roles. If one had predicted this 20 years ago, one would have been declared insane.

The  former villains, the reactionaries from the world of business, are playing the peace doves, because they believe that they cannot do without Russia's gas and commodities. The former eco-pacifists meanwhile engage in war-mongering, because they want to suck up to the Americans and want to dictate to Austrians that they must renounce Russian gas.

In order to sound sufficiently critical, the Greens grasped at everything that seemed useful as a political projectile. Ms. Glawischnig [the leader of Austria's Greens, ed.] really took the cake, as she had the cheek to declare: "These (oil and gas imports from abroad) apart from their high costs,  also mean an abridgment of sovereignty"

Ha! That was a good one! Sovereignty! The same Greens who have voted for the – unsuccessful – [EU] constitutional treaty, the Lisbon treaty and the euro rescue packages!”

As an aside to this, the leftist Greens have always had a certain authoritarian streak, but lately it has manifested itself more clearly. When the movement first came to the fore in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a protest movement. Its supporters were rightly concerned with the environmental degradation that became noticeable in the 1970s, and before the Greens coalesced as a party in Germany, they were essentially a loose grouping of people with an anti-establishment bent. In short, they were actually anti-authoritarian in the beginning. However,  since they were also always on the left side of the political spectrum, they were not averse to using the coercive power of the State for their own ends.

Now that they have themselves become part of the establishment, nothing of their former spirit of protest is left. Besides, all the important goals of the environmental movement have been achieved- in the industrialized West, air and water are clean nowadays. Instead, their authoritarian streak is now coming to the fore. In Europe, it inter alia expresses itself by their unreflected devotion to the EU's socialist super-state project. Hence also their unquestioned adoption of the “official” EU line on Russia and Vlad the Terrible.

Conclusion:

It seems the new pipeline will be built after all. In spite of the anti-Russian stance and opposition of some in the EU, in the end both Russia and the EU have common economic interests. The idea that liquefied US natural gas could replace imports of nearby and cheap Russian gas is in any case a pipe dream, and everybody knows it. It would make zero economic sense. Contrary to the picture painted in the media and by politicians with their own agendas, Russia is not an “enemy”. It evidently also has no designs on Ukraine's territory – although given the fact that the Russian pipeline network runs through the Ukraine, it can hardly be denied that Russia's government has an interest in what is happening in the country (see: “The Map that Explains Everything”).

We have previouly discussed what makes the Crimea different – in this case, geostrategic reasons practically forced the Russian government's hand after the coup. Moreover, a historical legal claim to the Crimea could be justified, since the territory was only incorporated into the Ukraine by former Soviet leader Khrushchev in what was a legally highly dubious maneuver in 1954.

The map that explains why both the West and Russia have an interest in the Ukraine – it certainly has nothing to do with 'democracy' or 'freedom' – via BBC, click to enlarge.

Meanwhile, the EU commission's objections to the new pipeline are at best token resistance in the final analysis.