Russia will find itself under pressure to soften its gas policy during a meeting of the rich G8 countries which opens this Friday in Moscow for two days and is placed under the sign of the security of energy supply.
It was Russia that chose to make this theme a priority in its year of presidency of the forum of the richest countries in the world, and that may backfire on this first meeting.
Europeans should indeed ask for concrete progress from Russia, the world's leading exporter of gas and second of petroleum, to ensure the reliability of their energy deliveries.
Westerners would particularly like the semi-state giant Gazprom to give independent producers in Russia and Central Asia access to its gas pipelines, when it also wants to invest in distribution on European markets.
"Europe is becoming more and more dependent on imports of oil and gas from geopolitically uncertain regions," said José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, in a speech Thursday in the United States.
While the EU has so far considered energy supplies from the Middle East to be the most at risk, it is the reliability of Russian gas supplies that is at the heart of concerns this year after a conflict with Ukraine and a wave exceptional cold which created a Russian gas deficit in Europe.
Friday was to be devoted to bilateral meetings between the invited finance ministers (Germany, Canada, United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan), as well as with the leaders of the World Bank and the IMF , Paul Wolfowitz and Rodrigo Rato.
In the evening, the Russian Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin invites his partners to the Kremlin for a reception.
Serious things are scheduled for Saturday with a working breakfast devoted to the current negotiations at the WTO on the liberalization of world trade with the participation of the finance ministers of China, India, Brazil and Africa from South.
G8 officials will then examine in a smaller committee the world economy, the oil market, energy supply, and debt cancellation for very poor countries.
Russia is ready to make a move and erase $ 688 million from the debt of 16 poor countries, said Koudrine.
But it will also seek to convince its Paris Club partners to accept an early repayment of the Russian debt of 11 to 12 billion dollars.
Ministers must also address the fight against infectious diseases, against the backdrop of the spread of avian flu.
On the other hand, financial and monetary questions will be largely left aside since the central bankers did not make the trip to Moscow.
These questions were the subject of a separate meeting of the G7 alone at the level of Secretaries of State for Finance Thursday in London, to which Russia was therefore not invited, told AFP a member of a G7 delegation on condition of anonymity.
The Kremlin sees its Russian presidency of the G8 this year as a stage in its return to the major world powers and is seeking full participation in all meetings, including financial ones.
But in addition to the still relative economic weight of Russia, many Western voices question the place of Moscow within the club of the richest democracies of the planet, at the moment when it knows an authoritarian drift and is accused by some to use the energy weapon to put pressure on its neighbors.
... however, it will eventually push Europe to move towards solutions that are less dependent on oil and gas producing countries
