Nord Stream: Not Just a Pipeline

Nord Stream: Not Just a Pipeline 17
be exaggerated, especially in light of the Russo-Belarusian energy dispute,
before which Moscow did not warn Berlin. Larsson sees this as an
example that Germany is not shielded from potential problems with
regard to Russian energy. Hirdman (interview), by contrast, does not
believe that the asymmetry is so dangerous. Like Proedrou (2007), he
focuses on the mutual dependence and lack of good alternatives for both
sides, and argues:
It depends on how one sees Russia. If one believes that Russia is
an aggressive actor that wants to turn off the gas supply to Europe,
then, of course this is dangerous. But if one has another image of
Russia, namely that it is a European state that is aiming at its
economic and political development, and that is being globalised
and modernised, then it is not that dangerous. We are always
getting back to the ‘images of Russia’. (Hirdman, interview).
The point about diverging images of Russia will be discussed in more
depth below, but for now it is worth mentioning that such images are very
much a result of different historical experiences, and the same can be said
about the interdependence argument. Director of the Estonian Foreign
Policy Institute, Andres Kasekamp (interview), underlines that from an
Estonian point of view, the prospect of more EU dependence on Russia is
a frightening one, and regarding the Germans’ argument about interdependence,
he asserts that:
Apparently this is some deep and grand way of thinking in the
German foreign ministry … And it seems to me that we
[Estonians] are accused of making our decisions based on our
history, but … the Germans are also making their decisions based
on their history. And the wrong history lesson that they are
drawing on interdependence is that they see everything through the
prism of the successful … reconciliation of Germany and France
after World War II in Europe … And now they hope to overcome
the differences with Russia by becoming more closely intertwined
… But although this theory sounds nice, I think it has pretty
serious flaws, not the least of all is that Vladimir Putin is not
Konrad Adenauer. (Kasekamp, interview).
Thus, the interdependence argument may not only be a theoretical and a
descriptive one, but also strongly embedded in the historical experiences
of those using it. The Germans would probably not have used the interdependence
argument if their history had taught them that economic
integration ‘does not work’, or perhaps more importantly, if their historical
energy relations with the Russians had been highly unstable. By and
large, there have been few problems in Russo-Germany energy relations.
The importance of this will be further highlighted in the next chapter,
which analyses inter alia Russia’s reliability as an energy supplier. The
important issue here is that few, if any, of the EU members in Central-
and Eastern Europe have an energy history with Moscow similar to that
of Germany. On the contrary, their historical experiences have taught
them that very few positive things derive from dependence on Moscow,
and this is one of the reasons why they do not accept the interdependence
argument for the EU as a whole.