Friday, October 29, 2004

Oil Power

In the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza Zbigniew SiemiÄ…tkowski, former head of Polish intelligence, has been warning about Russian oil imperialism.

Some excerpts:

SiemiÄ…tkowski warns about Russia

... In a very tough speech to the parliamentary commission investigating the Orlen case [PKN ORLEN is Poland's and Central Europe's largest refiner of crude oil and marketer of world-class petroleum and related products. It operates a network of approximately 1,900 petrol stations in Poland and around 500 outlets in Germany - M.L.], he pointed to threats which according to him bring Poland within the range of Russia’s economic expansion.

Restoration of empire

”What I am saying is not a result of some anti-Russian phobia , but is the knowledge I have acquired as the chief of the State Security Office. I am afraid that a restoration of Russian empire has been taking place. Russia has been coming to the fuel market of Eastern Europe, buying out those western companies which had participated in the privatization of the fuel-energy sector. We would have been under the same threat, if we had sold the Gdansk Refinery to Rotch Energy,behind which stood the Russian company LUKoil” he explained.

”Yesterday it was tanks, today it's crude oil. Today the commissars have been replaced by politicians and businessmen,” he said, referring to the times of Russian domination in Poland.

He acknowledged that Poland is 95% dependent on Russian deliveries: “We, the special services, had been saying that in order to be independent in some degree from the deliveries from Russia, a merger with serious partners in Eastern Central Europe needs to be pursued, but we faced counter-actions on the part of Russian companies, which have been actively entering the Eastern Central European market."


(tr. by Marius - with some editing)

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