The meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Prime Minister of Great Britain Tony Blair went in atmosphere of energy independence.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Vladimir Putin Promised Independence for Europe
// Visits
Yesterday in London Russian President Vladimir Putin showed up in the secret government center of crisis management COBR, and after coming out from there, he met with the press. Kommersant special correspondent ANDREY KOLESNIKOV was among the journalists, who have been told by Putin that the state does not intend to get involved into the process of Gasprom liberalization. In the mean time, the state did everything possible to take control over this process.
In the evening of Oct. 4 Vladimir Putin met with British business people. He was expected by familiar (John Brown, CEO of BP, and Jerome van der Veer, Chairman of Shell) and unfamiliar (Stewart Chambers, Chairman of Pilkington Glass, Hans Rudloff, Chairman of Barclays Capital, and Francis Mackay, Chairman of King-Fisher) to the president people. This time around, Vladimir Dmitriev, Chairman of Vnesheconombank, and Andrey Kostin, CEO of Vneshtorgbank, were asked to represent the Russian business. It was said that there were plans to include several more important Russians, but then, they have been told that the meeting will not be held at all and they don’t have to bother.
The meeting was held on Downing Street 10, in residence of the British Prime Minister. Everything was made to look informal: there were no long table, chairs, clean notepads and sharp pencils. Putin and Tony Blair were mingling around with champagne glasses in their hands. Periodically, they stopped to chat with familiar folks. The British Prime Minister introduced several businessmen to Putin. The meeting was lasting only for 30 minutes and both heads of states did not have a chance to touch base with everyone. According to Kommersant information, no participants of the meeting asked Russian president a question that every Western journalist asked Putin: will European countries feel excessive dependence of Russian energy sources? The people, who met Putin in Dawning Street 10, are interested in this dependence not a bit less than Russian president himself.
After the meeting with businessmen Tony Blair invited Russian president into his personal quarters. There, they spoke in private for some time among the tremendous amounts of toys spread around the rooms. That probably meant that the crisis in the relationships of Putin and Blair has passed..
Next morning, Putin started his day with a visit to the government centre of crisis management COBR. It is located right under the office of the British Prime Minister. The details of this visit were not revealed. Even personal journalists of Putin were not invited to the bunker. Before departure to Moscow, when the President of Russia approached to the journalists, I asked him how was he be able to get to the bunker and found out that it wasn’t that hard.
“You’ve got to take in the consideration the interest of our partners in cooperation in the face of global threat of international terrorism,” Putin explained with enthusiasm.
In other words, you can open any door (even to kick it open) if you have a right danger.
The correspondent from one of the federal TV channels asked Putin if there are any countries, in president’s opinion, that can prevent construction of North Caucus gas pipeline. After he picked up some tension in the Putin’s facial expression, the journalist corrected himself – he did not mean North Caucus gas pipeline (there would be plenty of the harsh opponents of that), but rather North European pipeline.
“It is properly called North European Gas Pipeline, “the president said with certain pleasure. Then, Putin tried to explain again: Russia and its partners do not squeeze anybody out; there will be no excessive dependence of Europe from Russia, and it would be counterproductive to politicize economic connections. The last thought was so perfect that it was no more need to politicize it.
Suddenly, the reporter from Agence France Press (AFP) asked Putin question about excessive dependence of Europe on Russia. At that point, the president lost his nerve.
“You should be happy! I don’t even understand what we are talking about!” he exclaimed.
The face of AFP correspondent did not radiate the happiness – he understood what the conversation was about.
The Reuters’ reporter asked about the liberalization of the Gasprom’s stock market. Putin answered in pretty interesting way:
“The liberalization is in the company’s plans,” he said “This is a business of the company itself. We are not involved in this process. Everything that was done before was just preparation work in this direction. I hope, the liberalization will not make to wait for itself for a long.”
It was an interesting statement… Until this very moment, the state was doing everything to have the opportunity to liberalize the Gasprom’s stock market. In the summer of 2005, the state finally acquired controlling share of the gas giant. And now, no other than the state has to do the last steps for the liberalization: the Russian government decree and the Presidential Decree. Besides, the Duma and Federation Council should adopt the amendments to the law “About Gas Supply”
There were absolutely no reasons to think that Putin misunderstood the question.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 06, 2005
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