Navalny fallout: Berlin rethinks Moscow gas deal

BERLIN/ MOSCOW: Pressure mounted on German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday to reconsider the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will take gas from Russia to Germany, after she said Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny had been poisoned with a Soviet-style nerve agent.

Merkel said on Wednesday that Navalny, who is being treated in a Berlin hospital, was the victim of a murder attempt using the nerve agent Novichok, and demanded an explanation by Russia.

Moscow has denied involvement and said the West should not leap to hasty conclusions.

Western countries have condemned the attack and many German politicians want a tough response. “We must pursue hard politics, we must respond with the only language (Russian President Vladimir) Putin understands - that is gas sales,” Norbert Roettgen, the conservative head of Germany’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said on Thursday.

Late on Wednesday, he had said completion of Nord Stream 2 “would be the maximum confirmation and encouragement for Putin to continue this kind of politics”. Nord Stream 2 will double the capacity of the existing Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany.

Led by Russia’s Gazprom with Western partners, the project is more than 90% completed and scheduled to operate from early 2021, which could make it hard to stop.

The project has split the European Union, with some members saying it will undermine the traditional gas transit state, Ukraine and increase the bloc’s energy reliance on Russia.

The US, keen to increase liquefied natural gas (LNG) sales to Europe, also opposes the pipeline and has targeted some companies involved with sanctions.