Romanian Officials Say Russia Finances European Fracking Protests 155
HughPickens.com writes Andrew Higgins reports in the NYT that Romanian officials including the prime minister point to a mysteriously well-financed and well-organized campaign of protests over fracking in Europe and are pointing their fingers at Russia's Gazprom, a state-controlled energy giant, that has a clear interest in preventing countries dependent on Russian natural gas from developing their own alternative supplies of energy and preserving a lucrative market for itself — and a potent foreign policy tool for the Kremlin. "Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas," says NATO's former secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. A wave of protest against fracking began three years ago in Bulgaria, a country highly dependent on Russian energy. Faced with a sudden surge of street protests by activists, many of whom had previously shown little interest in environmental issues, the Bulgarian government in 2012 banned fracking and canceled a shale gas license issued earlier to Chevron.
