You’ve got to hand it to the Spanish – while their friends in France, Germany, and even Italy get twisted up in the bickering with other EU members over common energy policy and relations with Russia, the Iberian peninsula often appears to be blissfully unaware and uninvolved. After all, as they are geographically beyond the reach of Moscow’s pipeline arteries, they enjoy a diverse supply of natural gas from Norway, Algeria, and the spot market at LNG terminals. As such Madrid has not really had to worry that much about Gazprom’s encroachment on various companies and assets critical to security of supply (not to mention the trafficking of influence). In a recent interview with the Economist, two-term Socialist Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero did not mention Russia or energy even once, despite the approaching partnership talks. He seemed entirely focused his domestic agenda, which has been the signature trademark of his stewardship of this government. The magazine also commended Mr. Zapatero as “one of Europe’s few successful politicians of the left” but warned that under his watch, the Spanish government has become overly inward-looking when it can and should be playing a larger role in European and global affairs – a fact demonstrated by the lack of invitation to participate in the Nov. 15 summit on the economic crisis in Washington. But Spain’s isolation from the hardball game of EU-Russia energy politics may be coming to a sudden end, as the Kremlin’s deputy prime minister (you know who that is) suddenly announced that Gazprom is currently in talks to buy up a 20% stake in Repsol, the country’s top oil refiner and one of the world’s ten largest remaining private energy corporations. Guess what: Madrid doesn’t like it at all.