Original in Spanish March 1, 2006
Author: Carlos Ramírez Powell
Edited by S. Naylor
Since the end of WW II European dependence on soviet energy supplies has been a fact of life that everybody tries to forget nowadays. With the exception of Romania, the countries behind the “Iron Curtain” received unlimited amounts of fossil fuels at giveaway prices.
In contrast with Cuba – which suffered a catastrophic disappearance of fuel shipments when the Soviet Union broke up – Eastern Europe kept receiving oil, natural gas, and refined products without too much turmoil on the pricing front because they were still, more or less, under the Russian sphere of influence. With time, the network of gas pipelines grew throughout Europe and became of primary importance in the German energy supply equation.
In these years of the comeback of the geostrategic vision of Russia, with the eccentric phase of neoliberal free market…
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