Between Gaza And Gas: Trapped In Other People"s Conflicts

At first, Romanian authorities assured the people that we were not going to be in any way affected by the ongoing gas crisis. Three days later, that is, yesterday, the minister of Economy declared an economic state of emergency in the national energy system. Unlike other countries in this part of the world, Romania is not entirely dependant upon Russian gas. Gazprom"s failure to abide by contractual obligations towards Romania should have been grounds for penalties. However, the content of the contract with Gazprom is not public, allowing sources from the gas system to say that Romania cannot claim penalties, even if gas deliveries are completely cut off. This leads us to the question how exposed we are to the moods of mother nature and especially those of the Russian authorities, just in case our leaders have made the bad choices for us already.

Legitimate suspicions

In November 2005, then Minister of Economy Codrut Seres went to Moscow and signed a contract with Gazprom to extend gas deliveries until 2030. Imports were to be intermediated by WIEE Romania, controlled by Gazprom and the German-based Wintershall. Shortly thereafter, a scandal emerged in Bucharest in relation to the price paid by Romania for Russian gas. The opposition started accusing the Government that Minister Seres had "negotiated" the highest price in Europe. One of the artisans of such negotiations was Secretary of State Dan Victor Alecsandru, directly subordinated to Minister Seres.

A year later, in November 2006, Dan Victor Alecsandru and Conef SA, a company controlled by the same Russians that controlled ALRO, set up Conef Gaz. This meant that Gazprom had decided to terminated WIEE"s monopoly on gas imports into Romania by including Conef into the operation as of 2010. The consequence? Nearly 40% of the Russian gas imports into Romania will be routed via the company in which Dan Victor Alecsandru holds 30%.

Strangely, Alecsandru was involved in a similar deal after the Distrigaz Sud privatization. At the end of May 2005, Dan Victor Alecsandru expedited the privatization of State-controlled Distrigaz Sud upon his return from Paris, where he had negotiated the privatization with Gaz de France, which eventually paid 615 million EUR for the Romanian company. On 31 May 2005, Seres announced that Distrigaz Sud would be handed over to the new owners the following day, 1 June 2005. On the same day, 31 May, Dan Victor Alecsandru was rewarded with a seat in the Board of Distrigaz Sud.

Just five days before, on 25 May 2005, Dan Victor Alecsandru had suddenly quit from his position of CEO of the local gas distributor Vital Gaz, a business which he had founded in 1998 together with the Israeli businessman Mosche Regev.

Gaz de France becomes registered as the new majority shareholder in Distrigaz Sud and Dan Victor Alecsandru is dismissed by Premier Tariceanu from his office of secretary of state without any explanations. However, Alecsandru lingers for another four months in his seat as member of the Distrigaz Sud Board.

Strangely, in April 2007, Distrigaz Sud announced the acquisition of the local gas distribution company Vital Gaz, founded by Alecsandru. A Distrigaz Sud official announces that negotiations had taken two years. This means we can assume that Dan Victor Alecsandru had started negotiating the price for Vital Gaz while he was officially negotiating the privatization of Distrigaz Sud.

Moreover, for quite a long period of time, Dan Victor Alecsandru participated in the negotiations with the French with a triple role: the administrator of Distrigaz, the company about to buy, a shareholder in Vital, the company about to be sold, and a Romanian dignitary who was expediting the sale of Distrigaz to the French.

A year a go, representatives of Gaz de France said they could not do anything to cut the intermediaries in the Russian gas delivery chain. Starting next year, one of these intermediaries is going to be their good acquaintance Dan Victor Alecsandru...

The former secretary of state could not be contacted yesterday for comment on these strange coincidences.