Russia has reacted in predictably robust manner to the FT’s story about how the European Commission is mulling over a range of ideas for keeping Gazprom and other non-EU companies from taking control of strategic energy assets.

The Commission’s ideas, set out in a confidential working paper seen by the FT’s sister paper FT Deutschland, do not have a tremendous ring of conviction to them: the agenda in Brussels is still set by competitiveness, not security. The point of the paper seems to be to find ways for for the Commission to secure its flank against criticism that it is endangering energy security, while its main thrust is still aimed at promoting competition by "unbundling" the national energy champions.

The threat of demanding reciprocity from companies seeking to buy strategic energy assets is a familiar one. As the old joke has it, everyone thinks that everyone else has to show reciprocity, but they never want it for themselves. But using the principle as a way to keep out the Russians may not be easy. In spite of the high-profile cautionary stories such as Sakhalin 2 and Kovykta, not every western company finds it is being pushed back in Russia. Not in the electricity industry, certainly: just ask Enel.

All the same, there is no doubt that since the Ukraine gas crisis 18 months ago, Europe has viewed Russia  in a very different light. If Gazprom tries to buy Centrica or RWE, you can bet some way will be found to block it.

An interesting post at the Oil Drum by Jerome Guillet, writing as Jerome a Paris, on Russia and European energy security, describing the argument that energy liberalisation is an answer to the EU’s dependence on Russian gas as "the usual insane crap." He also had a piece in the FT in February, making the same point in rather more diplomatic language. (FT pieces may require subscription)

As far as I can see, however, he fails to demonstrate his point. How national champions such as GDF and Eni signing long-term supply deals with Gazprom helps ease Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, I really don’t know. On the contrary, it is the UK market, the most liberalised in Europe, that is opening the fastest to new sources of gas from sources including Norway and Qatar. The bottom line, surely, is that history, geography and geology mean that Europe is and will continue to be heavily dependent on Russian gas for the forseeable future. The best it can do is try to give itself as many credible alternatives as possible.

He argues for greater energy efficiency and diversity of supply away from gas and coal, presumably to nuclear and renewables. Those are all excellent ideas. But they can be delivered in a liberalised market. The obstacles to new nuclear build in countries that will really need it, including Germany, Italy, and Spain, are nothing to do with the financing problems created by more liberalised energy markets, and all about politics, as this post on the Nuclear Eenergy Institute blog suggests.

Gazprom has done a deal to buy carbon dioxide emissions reduction certiifcates in Brazil, which it can then sell in the EU, the New York Times reports. The arrangement is part of its plan to build a global carbon trading business to take advantage of the massive ptential for emissions reduction in Russia, as highlighted in the FT back in January.

The best quote in the NYT piece, from Gazprom Marketing and Trading’s PR man: "Russia is the Saudi Arabia of carbon.”

Of course, this is the way that the emissions trading system created by Kyoto and the EU’s own scheme, which will be linked from next year, are supposed to work. Incentives are created for emissions reductions to happen wherever in the world they are cheapest.

Whether EU energy users are prepared to pay through higher prices for $60bn worth of credits from Russia, with Gazprom and its partners no doubt claiming a healthy margin on the trades, may be another matter.

Who would be in the Russian oil business? Imperial Energy, the London-listed oil and gas company, has been threatened with losing its licence in Russia, for reasons that seem rather confused, to put it mildly. Oleg Mitvol, the hammer of Shell over Sakhalin-2, is leading the charge.

Imperial’s reserves were valued at $2.8bn (requires FT.com subscription) in March, after it revealed a 41 per cent increase in those reserves (also subscription).

The theory after the problems faced by Shell and BP was that companies such as Imperial were too small to attract the Kremlin’s attention, and they could operate "below the radar". It looks as though it has just popped up on the screen.

Meanwhile, Shell has signed the deal to let Gazprom take control of Sakhalin-2, no doubt with its executives’ teeth tightly clenched. One shred of comfort: Ian Craig, the project’s chief executive, can stay in place until when the first gas arrives, expected by the end of next year, and will not be replaced immediately by a Gazprom appointment.