A meeting between Vladimir Putin and Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, had been a "final straw" in persuading the Russian president to sign a big gas deal with China, Gazprom's chief executive told European ambassadors last week

Alexei Miller said Mr Putin had been "taken aback" by what he understood as suggestions from Mr Barroso that the European Union wanted to keep Gazprom's share of the EU gas market within certain limits, and might use competition policy tools to do so.