European Union (Amendment) Bill

We must get away from seeing Gazprom as a huge bogey man or bear on the international gas and oil market. Gazprom is successful because it is a paying concern, and it has no interest in cutting off supplies to Bavaria, thereby cutting off receipts to the Russian budget. I remarked earlier that some 47 per cent. of the Russian budget comes from oil and gas exports to Europe and trade. In an interdependent world, it is not in Gazprom's interest to cut off gas supplies to Bavaria. There is absolutely no reason for it to do so. There is a politicisation of the debate on Russian oil and gas that, in my view, is influenced and directed by the United States of America, to the detriment of the European Union and certainly to the detriment of our supply of oil and gas from Russia.