Russian gas pipeline faces hurdles amid Ukraine tensions
FRANKFURT, Germany — The pipeline is built and being filled with natural gas. But Russia’s Nord Stream 2 faces a rocky road before any gas flows to Germany, with its new leaders adopting a more skeptical tone toward the project and tensions ratcheting up over Russia’s troop buildup at the Ukrainian border.
The pipeline opposed by Ukraine, Poland and the U.S. awaits approval from Germany and the European Union to bypass other countries and start bringing natural gas directly to Europe. The continent is struggling with a shortage that has sent prices surging, fueling inflation and raising fears about what would come next if gas supplies become critically low.
The U.S. has stressed targeting Nord Stream 2 as a way to counter any new Russian military move against Ukraine, and the project already faces legal and bureaucratic hurdles. As Europesaid, an and U.S. leaders confer on how to deal with Russia’s pressure on Ukraine, persistent political objections — particularly from EU members such as Poland — add another challenge to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key projects.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed the pipeline, and the country’s new leader, Olaf Scholz, did so as her finance minister. But his new government took a more distanced tone after the Greens party joined the governing coalition. The Greens’ campaign position was that the fossil fuel pipeline doesn’t help fight global warming and undermines strategic EU interests.
New German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have said the project doesn’t meet EU anti-monopoly regulations.
“Nord Stream 2 was a geopolitical mistake,” Habeck recently told the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. “The question is open if it will be able to start operating,” Habeck adding that further “aggression” meant “nothing is off the table.”
Officials have not said what sanctions or other tools might be used on top of existing U.S. sanctions against ships connected to the project.
As chancellor, Scholz has been cautious in his comments, and it’s not clear if he’s willing to go as far as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has said it’s “very unlikely” that gas will flow if Russia “renewed its aggression” toward Ukraine.
Pressed on whether an invasion would halt the pipeline, deputy German government spokesman Wolfgang Buechner said Nord Stream 2 is “an undertaking of a private business that is largely completed” and that regulatory approval “has no political dimension.” He stressed that military aggression would have “high costs and sanctions,” without saying what those might be.
Scholz “never makes things completely clear,” said Stefan Meister, an expert on Russian energy policy at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
“So I am not sure under which conditions he would really agree to stop the pipeline.”
Still, Meister said, there was “a new tone, a new rhetoric from the new German government.”
The pipeline would double the volume of gas pumped by Russian-controlled gas giant Gazprom directly to Germany, adding to a similar pipeline under the Baltic Sea and circumventing existing links through Poland and Ukraine. Gazprom argues it would allow more reliable longterm supply and help save billions in transit fees paid to Poland and Ukraine. Gazprom says the pipeline is part of its role as a long-term supplier of affordable energy to Europe.
Pipeline critics say it increases Russia’s leverage over Europe, pits member states against each other and deprives Ukraine of key financial support.