This week’s big Gazprom news is that their bid to take over Serbia’s national energy monopoly, NIS, at a knockdown price was successful. A Fistful of Euros has an excellent post summarizing the various motives leading to Serbia offloading the company for $2 billion less than it was worth, and a good article from Reuters quotes analyst Miroslav Prokopijevic, who argues that “I think this is a catastrophic move. … Serbia is becoming hostage of one country and of one company that does not have a tradition of market oriented behaviour.” It is frankly astonishing to see how many countries are willing to believe that the Kremlin will make them a central distribution hub – it’s the same logic that has roiled Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and others. That’s quite a few distribution points, but I can imagine how the very possibility of controlling the gas supply to Croatia, Albania, and other Southern Europe countries must seem irresistible to Serbia. Last week Robert Amsterdam was interviewed by several Serbian media outlets about the Gazprom bid – after the jump, a translation of the most important article published. The coverage started several robust conversations on the message boards, which can be read here.