NEW RUSSIAN-GERMAN RAPPROCHEMENT LEAVES POLAND OUT IN THE COLD

he deal signed by Russia's Gazprom and Germany to run a pipeline under the Baltic sea leaves Poland increasingly isolated, both on its eastern and western flanks, and the country is looking decisively to the United States as a strategic partner, rather than Germany, which has "betrayed" it, George Kolankiewicz, director of London University's School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies told Adnkronos International (AKI).

After the conservative Law and Justice party's candidate Lech Kaczynski's secured the Polish presidency on Monday, and the party's narrow general election victory last month, "the country's tone towards Moscow and Berlin will become more shrill and its stance more confrontational," Kolankiewicz predicted.

The four billlion euro pipeline deal signed in September between Gazprom and Germany which approved a 1200-kilometre pipeline under the Baltic Sea between the Russian port of Wyborg and the German city of Greifswald is still "an open wound" with Poles, he said.

The planned pipeline bypasses the Baltic countries and Poland - for whom the rights for existing pipelines that cross the country are an important source of revenue, heightening Poland's mistrust towards Germany and Russia, which dates from World War Two, Kolankiewicz said. The pipeline will from 2010 provide vast supplies of gas to western Europe, notably Germany and - in the future - Britain.

The pipeline's initial capacity will be around 27.5 billion cubic metres per year, which will eventually double to 55 billion cubic metres. Gazprom has a 51 percent stake in the pipeline, and the German Ruhrgas and Wintershall groups each hold a 24.5 percent share. The deal has stirred up bitter controversy in the eastern European countries, who have vowed to oppose the project on environmental grounds and to lobby Germany's new government over the issue.

Gazprom currently provides one-quarter of Europe's gas, and Germany is its largest customer. "The problem is that even if the European Union wanted to show it understands Poland's worries, it can't afford to jeopardise the new climate of 'rapprochement' with Russia, which it needs if Europe is to resolve its energy problems," Kolankiewicz concluded.

(Source: AKI)