AP Photo

The Eurasia gas market is a paradox: declining consumer demand and ample reserves live side-by-side with potential gas shortages.  Already hit hard in early 2009, consumers in a good dozen EU countries may be up for another cold spell this coming winter.  The reason will not be a lack of gas reserves or an inability to pay, but rather a combination of bad policies and mismanagement that has become a problematic for the European consumer, EU governments and the transatlantic community.

Eurasia is blessed with a third of the world's proven natural gas reserves.  It also boasts a huge gas-producing infrastructure that extracts over 35% of the global gas output; an extensive system of natural gas pipelines, spanning from West Siberia and Central Asia to the Atlantic...