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The European Commission has announced the opening of an investigation into Gazprom, suspected of “anti-competition practices in Central and Eastern Europe," reveals Adevărul. Brussels is seeking to establish whether the Russian gas giant is abusing its dominant position in the upstream markets in order to shut out its European competitors, the Romanian daily writes.

In particular, Gazprom is suspected of disrupting the flow of gas between Member States, attempting to thwart the diversification of sources of supply, and of imposing unfair prices on its customers by indexing the price of gas to the price of petroleum.

In Germany, the Financial Times Deutschland writes that the proceedings initiated by the Commission —

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... are a new stage in the dispute over gas between Russia and the EU. Europeans want to reduce their dependence on imports of Russian gas, and Brussels has long sought to promote competitiveness.

To do so, the Commission would like to set up an internal market to permit the free flow of gas between EU members. Gazprom is suspected of trying to obstruct such a market.

"On average,” the FTD notes, “a quarter of the EU's gas comes from Russia", while some eastern European countries depend entirely on Gazprom, half of whose profits come from Europe.

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