Germany Breaks out

Raise your eyes from the Westminster froth, where the government proves unwilling to resurrect the convention of ministerial responsibility, and adverse developments on the Continent raise questions about Blair's strategic incompetence. Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin met in the Siberian city of Tomsk and confirmed the establishment of a pipeline through the Baltic Sea bypassing the countries of East and West Central Europe.

This symbolic move demonstrated Germany's willingness to develop a reliance upon Russia for its energy resources, undermining the supposed drive for a unified EU energy security and increasing the geopolitical uncertainty of EU Member States in the Baltic. Poland's reaction was vitriolic:

Second, as Sikorski [Polish Foreign Minister] pointed out, Moscow and Berlin reached the deal without first consulting Poland and the Baltic states. Such a methodology dramatically reduces the new E.U. members' influence, and it also undermines E.U. efforts to produce a consistently common energy policy.

As a consequence, Berlin's "special relationship" with Russia is causing malaise in the Old Continent, and Poland is raising its voice as it knows that both Brussels and Washington are interested in countering Moscow's aggressive energy strategy that uses gas supplies to regain political influence in Eastern Europe.

Unilateral moves to protect national interests demonstrate clearly the limits of the European project and its inability to protect the needs of its smaller states. As Germany and other countries break ranks to accommodate Russia and secure their needs, Britain is clearly faced with a weakened continent that trades security of energy supply for and aggressive Russian influence.

Now that Britain is facing a deficit in energy and a free market that is not replicated amongst our near neighbours, we need to ensure diversification of supply in order to downgrade the influence of any one supplier, ie Russia and the Middle East. Does this mean that we should seriously consider  nuclear power?  Will we be able to  avoid a vulnerable reliance upon two volatile geographical sources of oil and natural gas: Russia and the Middle East?

Pertinent questions that the Blair administration failed to consider, as in many other areas, they considered an EU Directive, was sufficient to protect national interests. Their mismanagement of Britain's security will wreak more long-term damage than any of their current scandals.