We used to seeing advocates of many different stripes mounting vigorous defenses of Gazprom’s activities in Europe – even their partners in E.ON and EdF have joined in to bash the European Commission’s unbundling proposal for its Gazprom clause. The pitch isn’t hard to master: Gazprom, a “reliable” company which always meets its contract obligations, is the victim of unfair political discrimination in Europe, and is not allowed the reciprocity it deserves. What I couldn’t have predicted is that the next proponent of this victim narrative would be none other than Anatoly Chubais, the maverick liberal with uncanny political survival skills, most recently surviving a direct confrontation with Igor Sechin over the privatization of UES (not many can say that). Neil Buckley has a terrifically fascinating report on comments made by Chubais about Gazprom in tomorrow’s FT, and I am left wondering who Anatoly owes a favor to… Never try to predict what this guy is going to do. Nevertheless, the argument still has the same gigantic holes in it. Gazprom does not function like a normal company, reciprocity is a vastly misunderstood topic, and, as many officials at the European Commission have pointed out, Gazprom should consider itself lucky to be given the same treatment as a respected global titan like Microsoft. Unlike in Russia, regulatory activities in Europe aren’t just instruments of intimidation.

Russian hits at EU fear of Gazprom By Neil Buckley in Moscow One of Russia’s leading liberal reformers has accused the European Union of trying to limit access to its natural gas market for Gazprom for political reasons, motivated by misguided fears about the Russian gas giant.