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Soviet Union [USSR] Western Europe
In the mid-1980s, West European exports to the Soviet Union
were marginal, less than 0.5 percent of the combined gross national
product
(
GNP--see Glossary) of countries of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development
(
OECD--see Glossary). OECD
countries provided the Soviet Union with high-technology and
industrial equipment, chemicals, metals, and agricultural products.
In return, Western Europe received oil and natural gas from the
Soviet Union.
Although oil and gas were the primary Soviet exports to Western
Europe, they represented only a small percentage of Western
Europe's substantial fuel imports: Soviet oil provided 3 percent
and natural gas 2 percent of the energy consumed in Western Europe.
The completion of the Urengoy-Uzhgorod export pipeline project
increased the importance of Soviet natural gas to Western Europe in
the second half of the 1980s. In 1984 France, Austria, the Federal
Republic of Germany (West Germany), and Italy began receiving
natural gas from western Siberia through the pipeline, for which
the Soviet Union was paid in hard currency, pumping equipment, and
large-diameter pipe. By 1990 the Soviet Union expected to supply 3
percent of all natural gas imported by Western Europe, including 30
percent of West Germany's gas imports.
Unlike the United States, the countries of Western Europe have
not viewed trade as a tool to influence Soviet domestic and foreign
policies. Western Europe rejected the trade restrictions imposed by
the United States after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979
and the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1980. From 1980 to
1982, the United States embargoed the supply of equipment for the
Urengoy-Uzhgorod natural gas pipeline, but Western Europe ignored
United States pleas to do the same.
Despite the poor relations between the superpowers in the early
and mid-1980s, Western Europe tried to improve international
relations with the Soviet Union. One major step in this direction
was the normalization of relations between Comecon and the European
Economic Community (EEC). After fifteen years of negotiations, the
EEC approved an accord that established formal relations with
Comecon effective June 25, 1988. Although it did not establish
bilateral trade relations, the agreement ""set the stage"" for the
exchange of information. This accord marked Comecon's official
recognition of the EEC.
Data as of May 1989
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