Denmark faces dilemma over Russian gas pipeline

Denmark is under pressure to rule on whether a new Russian pipeline supplying gas to Germany can be built near its Baltic coast, a decision that puts it in the line of fire from friend and foe alike.

Denmark does not want to act alone in resolving one of the biggest foreign policy quandaries that the small European Union nation has faced since the Cold War.

But its search for a united European Union stance on the proposed pipeline is deadlocked by divisions among member states over whether to do more business with Moscow despite its military incursions in Ukraine and Syria and accusations it used a nerve agent in an attempted assassination on British soil.

Fierce lobbying

The Danish government is facing fierce lobbying by Russia, EU allies and the United States over the €9.5 billion ($11.7 billion) Nord Stream 2 project championed by President Vladimir Putin and financed by five Western firms.

“They are under huge pressure from all sides,” one senior EU official said. There is no definite timing for a decision, which had been expected this spring but has been delayed while Denmark considers the security implications. But officials say it cannot be postponed indefinitely.

A Danish veto, under new legislation allowing it to do so on security grounds, would force Russia, which supplies about one third of Europe’s gas needs, to find a new route for the pipeline.

“This is not about gas, it is one of the most important foreign policy decisions in Denmark since the Cold War,” said foreign policy researcher Hans Mouritzen at the Danish Institute for International Studies.