The G8 Minus 1?

With the aftershocks of the Russian natural gas cutoff to Europe still reverberating around the continent, the EU is looking to make common cause with the U.S. regarding energy policy:

"In today's world, if the energy security of either one of us is impaired, it affects the other. I believe this situation calls for a transformation in our cooperation on energy issues," Jose Manuel Barroso said in a speech at Washington's Georgetown University where he was receiving an honorary degree.

"Just as it is ridiculous to have 25 separate energy policies in the European Union, so it would fly in the face of common sense for the transatlantic partnership to pull in different directions in this critical area," Barroso said, according to excerpts of his speech released in Brussels.

This leads our friend Rob McMillin to note:

The Russians have done themselves no favors by baring their teeth at the rest of Europe, shutting off gas, if indirectly, to their Western customers, and before that with the Yukos fiasco. It's fairly clear now that the G8 has one member too many, one that nobody else trusts anymore.

The G8 meets again in Moscow next week.

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