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1. One very strange article by @carrzee from Bloomberg, relying on one source @katyafimava, as @thierry_bros, says difficult to see how EU General Court can be deemed 'political' especially when the ruling is grounded in the Treaty & case law. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
2. The EU General Court drew directly on Article 194 (1) TFEU which specifically refers to the 'spirit of solidarity' in its text. Article 194 TFEU is the principal legal base for energy legislation in the EU Treaties.
3. Furthermore it is clear from the Commission exemption decision in 2016 which was under legal challenge in this case that the Commission has only examined the impact of the decision on German and the Czech market. It had not taken any broader view of the market impact.
4. How could the Commission be said to be acting in a 'spirit of solidarity' if it did not take into account in its analysis the impact of the entire EU market and the interests of all Member States?
5. This issue of a lack of a complete market and interest analysis I raised in my paper on the OPAL decision in the spring of 2017. The link to the article is here: dralanriley.com/2019/09/12/opa…
6. As a consequence i do not see how the ruling can be dismissed as 'political' its argument is grounded in the text of the Treaties and is applied logically to the facts presented to the Court.
7. Its also difficult to see how @katyafimava can make the argument that the ruling increases the danger of transit disruption in January. Surely given the fact that OPAL will not be fully available to Gazprom in January, G is left with fewer alternative supply options
8. In reality Gazprom is more reliant on using the Ukrainian transit now than it was before to carry its gas into EU markets-which reduces incentives to just let the Ukrainian transit contract expire.
9. Having said that if G does refuse to drop its unreasonable demands before it will sign a new contract (eg requiring Ukraine to set aside its award against G of $2.56 billion obtained in the Stockholm arbitration proceedings) the EU market will end up taking even more non-G gas
10. The OPAL ruling has in fact a double effect of (a) reducing the incentives for G to do a deal with Ukraine on a transit contract while (b) increasing the market opportunity for non-EU gas should G refuse to modify its unreasonable demands.
