MOSCOW, December 14 (RIA Novosti) Russia should consider new program for cooperation with US / Europe should get a better grip on global changes - expert / Russia and Iran to set up a joint gas company / Russia's oil and gas majors ponder switchover to ruble settlements / German company delays buying into Russian pharmacy giant
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Russia should consider new program for cooperation with US
The recent report by the United States' intelligence community on Iran's nuclear weapons program means that America should start preparing for a change of administration, a Russian political analyst told the popular daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Sergei Karaganov, dean of the world economy and politics department at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics, said the report signified the U.S. ruling elite's revolt against the irresponsible policy that has created problems for the country.
The United States has entered a long path leading out of the Iraqi dead-end. In three to five years, it may start shaking off its post-Iraqi syndrome and will solve part of its financial problems, the analyst writes.
This will spotlight the strong points of the United States as the world's largest economy and a highly attractive, developed and balanced democracy.
Karaganov says the world will be different by then, with a stronger China and India. Hopefully, a stronger Russia will keep its position in the world.
The illusion of U.S. hegemony in a unipolar world will be laid to rest. However, the United States will regain its position as the global leader, beginning in about two years.
Russia will have a new goal in this situation. In the past few years, it has been working to regain its positions, which it lost or was deprived of in the preceding 15 years, Karaganov writes. The rules of the game were changed arbitrarily then, and nobody respected Russia, believing that it might scream and shout but would eventually accept its position.
According to the analyst, the world treated Russia as a defeated enemy. The Kremlin will not easily forget the two waves of NATO expansion contrary to promises made to Russia, the bombing of Yugoslavia, and international support granted to Russia's opponents in former Soviet countries.
Karaganov said that in 12-18 months the West would see that Russia has changed dramatically and will not succumb to spineless policies and chaos again. Western attacks, or counterattacks, will become less intensive, and there will be more opportunities to agree on disputed issues, primarily with the United States.
Russia's poor relations with the world's largest power benefit above all its rivals and adversaries. Therefore, it should start drafting a new program of cooperation with the United States, based on new rules and taking into account past mistakes, Karaganov writes.
The biggest mistake was the Soviet Union's reaction to the U.S. defeat in Vietnam - Moscow jubilantly launched a new geopolitical offensive in the developing world. The United States kicked back quite fiercely. Ultimately, this led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The analyst warns against stepping on the same rake again. The current confrontation may seem pleasant after years of humiliation, but it is thoroughly counterproductive, he writes.
Kommersant
Europe should get a better grip on global changes - expert
The practical fiasco that was the recent EU-Africa summit, when Africans rejected a free trade zone proposal, was evidence of Europe's lack of flexibility in its search for new cooperation schemes, wrote Vladimir Gutnik, head of European studies at Moscow's Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO).
The European community is stuck on traditional forms shaped when the European Union was dependent only on the United States, if it could be said to be dependent on anyone. Today, despite the proclaimed "unipolar" world order, global interdependence is steadily growing. The old forms of international ties were good enough for the 20th century, but Europe should seek different solutions now, ones that will meet the interests of many equal partners, Gutnik believes.
According to the expert, the current Russia-EU relations reflect a lack of willingness to work on these kind of solutions, something which has grown more evident in the past two years. If it hadn't been for Poland vetoing the Russia-EU strategic partnership agreement, it would have caused even more confusion. It revealed a tangle of controversies and discrepancies between Russia and Europe, and neither was willing to compromise - from the Energy Charter to Europe's policy toward the CIS. However, while in late 2006, the situation felt like a deadlock, today a possibility is vaguely being outlining to develop a new format of Russia-EU relations.
Regrettably though, we are unlikely to advance smoothly toward it; each difficult agreement reached (like Russia's lifting the ban on Polish meat imports, a Christmas gift to the EU) will most probably be followed by another ban - for example on the activity of some fund or other, the expert concluded.
Gazeta
Russia and Iran to set up a joint gas company
Russia and Iran are beginning a big geopolitical game. On Thursday, Iran's Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki proposed setting up a joint gas company with Russia.
Gazprom made a similar offer several years ago, but Iran has only now got round to it. Russia, as a result, is ridding itself of a potential rival to supply gas to Europe bypassing Gazprom. Iran, in turn, will be able to expand its gas exports. To eastern countries, at least.
Although Iran produces more than 150 billion cubic meters of gas a year, it consumes it all, with its border regions even purchasing gas from Turkmenistan, something which makes more sense economically.
"Iran has no access to external gas market outlets. Paradoxically, the country with the world's second largest gas resources has to import it," said Konstantin Simonov, general director of the National Energy Security Fund.
Europe and the United States, to put Russia on the fringe, have come up with the Nabucco gas project, which theoretically was to be filled with Azeri and Turkmen gas, but actually looked to Iranian deposits.
In the opinion of experts, the Iranian oil and gas sector needs at least $160 billion to develop properly. However, U.S. invasion threats have scared investors away.
Tehran has even planned selling gas to its eastern neighbors. Just recently, it discussed at length plans to build an Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Iranian officials showed much diplomatic skill in persuading hostile India and Pakistan to cooperate in laying the pipe. All three parties allowed for Gazprom's participation.
But the region's vital project got stalled, again largely due to U.S. interference in the political situation in South Asia.
In Simonov's view, in this way the U.S. is trying to strip China of sources of energy and slow down its maddening economic growth.
In the upshot, after weighing all the factors for and against, Iran has chosen Russia as a strategic ally (together they share half the world's explored gas reserves).
Tehran has realized that gas (its production, transportation, treatment, sales and prices) is one of the key political trump cards when a country is partly isolated from the rest of the world.
Vedomosti
Russia's oil and gas majors ponder switchover to ruble settlements
The falling dollar has made Russia's largest independent oil producer LUKoil ponder a switchover to ruble settlements following Gazprom, which is also considering dropping the U.S. currency.
"When your earnings are nominated in dollars and expenses in rubles, and the earnings are falling following a drop in the currency exchange rate, you have to do something about it," said Andrei Gaidamaka, head of LUKoil's investment analysis and investor relations division.
The dollar has been falling since 2003. From the Central Bank's maximum of 31.85 rubles per dollar, it has dropped by 23.4% (against the current Central Bank's rate of 24.44 rubles per dollar). Since the start of the year, the dollar has fallen by 11% against the euro.
The exchange rate difference is an acute problem for LUKoil, with exports accounting for 85% of its revenues, said Denis Borisov, an analyst at the Solid investment & financial company. Over the first nine months of 2007, LUKoil could have received $2 billion more in earnings (which amounted to $57.1 billion), considering the nominal strengthening of the ruble and discounting retail margin, Borisov said.
OPEC members have already raised the issue of a transition to euro settlements but they have not yet ventured to make this step. Gazprom managers have talked recently about a possible transition to ruble settlements. In early December, Alexander Medvedev, deputy chairman of Gazprom's management committee and director general of Gazprom Export, said that considering the weakening dollar, Gazprom was seriously pondering gas sales for rubles. However, no decision has been taken yet, a Gazprom spokesman said.
Russia's state-controlled oil producer Rosneft is also exploring this possibility, said a source close to Rosneft. Back in the summer, President Putin proposed that major oil and gas exporters should consider ruble settlements.
All these plans are realistic and they are, no doubt, a new Russian priority. However, according to Yaroslav Lisovolik, chief economist with Deutsche UFG, a transition to ruble settlements is unlikely before 2009.
Business & Financial Markets, Kommersant
German company delays buying into Russian pharmacy giant
German pharmaceutical wholesaler Celesio AG, which posted a turnover of 21.6 billion euros last year, has decided not to acquire a majority stake in Russia's state-owned pharmacy giant Protek, which controls distribution, retail and production chains, citing possible nationalization as the main reason.
However, market players and experts said Celesio did not want to do business with a company involved in a corruption scandal involving Protek and Russia's Mandatory Medical Insurance Fund (FOMS).
FOMS executives were charged with accepting bribes from the heads of regional branches of the fund, and pharmaceutical and other commercial companies involved in distributing medication and medical equipment under a state-run program to provide free or subsidized drugs to low-income population groups.
On August 16, Moscow's Basmanny District Court issued an arrest warrant for Vitaly Smerdov, general director of the Protek Development Center, who has been charged with bribing FOMS officials.
In mid-October, Celesio said it wanted to buy Protek's distribution, retail and production chains worth an estimated $1-1.2 billion. The company's PR director Rainer Berghausen said the initial deal would be closed in December.
But Celesio CEO Dr. Fritz Oesterle later said the German company would not sign the relevant contract in mid-December, citing uncertainty over the possible nationalization of one of Russia's three leading pharmacy giants, including Protek.
Protek Group CEO Vadim Muzyayev said he was quite surprised by this groundless statement, and that the company was suspending bilateral talks pending an inquiry.
A source said the companies were unable to agree on the contract's price and on the sale of some Protek assets.
David Melik-Guseinov, head of marketing research department at the Pharmexpert Center for Market Studies, said the German company could resume talks with Protek next year.
Last year, the state-owned company Protek, comprising Rigla, the second largest pharmacy network in Russia, and the Protek Development Center and Sotex plant, posted $2.4 billion in profits.
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