MOSCOW. (Igor Tomberg for RIA Novosti).
-- Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, talking to a news conference after the G8 finance ministers' meeting, said Russia's "first cake" in the G8 kitchen "was not half-baked", evidently referring to a popular Russian saying. The meeting itself and its results mean Russia's breakthrough toward a full-fledged membership in the world's most exclusive club. Capitalizing on its rotating chair capacity, Moscow showed a proactive position on all dimensions of the debate.
The ministers of the seven western G8 members, who had met in Moscow the day before the Kudrin-chaired gathering, had clearly decided to upgrade Russia's standing in the Group of Eight and, accordingly, raise its overall global status, which largely stems from the current global political and economic climate.
Russia became actively involved in such politically sensitive recent processes as the dispute around Iran's nuclear file and the situation in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Palestinian elections. While international concern around Iran resulted mainly in faster growth of oil prices - the recent $65 per barrel is just slightly lower than last year's all-time high, - and Europeans began to worry about possible shortage of supplies of Russian natural gas, the timing for Moscow's energy initiatives could hardly be more suitable.
Speaking to G8 finance ministers, Russian President Vladimir Putin described "higher energy efficiency, better energy saving, the development of alternative energy, and efforts against 'energy famine' in the developing world" as top priorities.
"We assign a meaningful role to the creation of a friendly investment climate and stable and transparent rules in the global energy sector," the Russian President said. "We are working on such programs here in Russia, and we are ready to offer them for discussion to our international partners."
These words came as evidence of Russia's claim for global energy leadership: non-players are rarely allowed to offer their own rules of the game.
Moscow has also offered a "constructive dialogue between main producers and consumers of energy," which Russians say would "facilitate the development of the agreed joint measures to stabilize the market in a crisis."
Last year's idea of creating an Exogenous Shocks Facility for economies affected by volatile energy prices or by major natural disasters requiring fast response received an additional impetus in Moscow as Russia signed up for a $43-million contribution.
With energy security firmly on top of the agenda of the July St. Petersburg G8 summit, Russia has already put forward many energy initiatives. Some of them were discussed at Saturday's meeting and, Kudrin said, the finance ministers supported Moscow's proposal to disclose industry data not only on strategic oil but also on gas reserves. Kurdin also spoke to his counterparts about the need to make the natural gas market global in order to expand its reach through a concerted effort.
Comments coming from the West suggested that these proposals had met with a positive response. Speaking to the Moscow news conference after the meeting, French Finance Minister Thierry Breton mentioned that Russia had made a point of its willingness to create a global gas market similar to the existing world oil market. He said a debate on new gas transport routes and new pas pipelines - running through Asia as well as Europe - was on the table.
"We are going to finance these efforts through the European Investment Bank," the French minister said.
Russia's commitment to disclosing its hydrocarbon reserves certainly deserves close attention as it shows as much pragmatism as openness. Reserves are today's best currency. Good reserves figures are a key factor of high market capitalization in any energy company. If the real plan behind this is to boost Russia's overall capitalization and status on a global level, the timing for telling how much of those strategic reserves we have is very good indeed.
On debt relief, Moscow has delighted World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz by promising to write off $688 million worth of poor African nations' debt, firmly drawing his support for its "expensive gas" policies in relation to its neighbors. Basically, the West understands in any case that the prices for former Soviet republics, which were well below the prices the West had been paying for the same gas, were to grow to a certain level. What was important was to explain that the Ukrainian "gas robbery" should not be seen as a precursor to instability in Russian gas supplies to Europe.
Moscow apparently succeeded as much on its status as a first-class debtor as it did on its image as a reliable energy supplier. The Russian President said Moscow was ready to pay off up to $11.9 billion of its debt to the Paris Club ahead of schedule.
Importantly, Russia's current posture is greatly different from what we saw just years ago. This time Russia is not only racing among others for global energy leadership and seeking to create a comfortable world gas market for itself, but is also using its huge oil revenues to become a global donor. That the finance ministers have acknowledged Russia's successful and stable economic development will arguably attract more investment than even an upgrade by international rating agencies.
Russia has taken on a very special responsibility of hosting the G8 summit and leading the discussion on key global issues. How it copes with this tall order will be crucial to its international reputation. The first step - the G8 finance ministers' meeting - has been firm and successful enough.
Dr. Igor Tomberg is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
