Foreign Policy quotes Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow John Roberts on the Nord Stream expansion and what it means for Europe’s dependence on Russian energy:
“What Nord Stream does is confirm the centrality of Europe in Russian gas thinking. The whole pivot to the East, the idea of the East being built up as an alternative to Europe, it’s going down the tubes,” said John Roberts, a pipeline expert at Methinks Ltd., an energy consultancy, and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.
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“You have to separate companies from governments. The whole European diversification effort has largely been a matter for governments,” Roberts said. In contrast, he said, “the only companies who even mention diversification in terms of energy security are those for whom it is naturally good because they have a resource that they want to exploit.” The companies piling into Nord Stream see it as a “purely commercial decision,” Roberts said, divorced from any wider considerations of Europe’s energy security.