The National: Russia’s bid for Turkish Stream pipeline may open the gates to the competition it most fears

Energy exports are a useful weapon, but one that can only be wielded only once.

If Russia persists with its latest move in the long drawn-out battle over Europe’s gas supply, it will open the gates to the competition it has feared for the past decade and more.

Europe gets 30 per cent of its gas from Russia – still mostly transported through Ukraine, despite the opening of a new pipeline under the Baltic directly to Germany. Previous cut-offs of gas through Ukraine, most seriously in 2009, and the continuing conflict there, have made Russia look for alternative routes.

But in December, it gave up on plans for South Stream – a line under the Black Sea to Bulgaria, after legal objections from the EU. The Europeans were in no mood to make life easy for Russia’s monopoly Gazprom while imposing sanctions on the country over its support for forces fighting Kiev in eastern Ukraine.

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