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FACTS Post opinions with a wide range of perspectives to encourage constructive discussion.
The completion of Nord Stream 2 has been postponed again, but this time the delay could be fatal. Recall: according to the initial plans, the pipeline was supposed to be put into operation in December 2019, but the US sanctions against the companies participating in the project prevented it. In January 2020, Russian President Putin set new deadlines: “I hope that by the end of the year, or in the first quarter of next year, the work is finished and the pipeline is operational.”
“Academician Chersky” has not yet been activated
The first quarter of 2021 has already passed and although the installation of pipes at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in waters of Denmark and Germany has resumed, it is still far from being completed. Mainly due to the long-term modernization of the “Academician Chersky” pipe-laying ship, which did not start operating until the end of March. This led to the announcement of another new deadline: “This year Nord Stream 2 will be completed for sure,” Gazprom CEO Viktor Zubkov said at a press conference in Berlin. The new horizon is clearly the end of 2021.
Elections that will change a lot
However, it is during this period that elections will be held in Germany; the new composition of the Bundestag will be determined on September 26. Angela Merkel will resign as chancellor and a new government will be formed. And whatever it is, it will almost certainly involve Nord Stream 2’s fiercest opponents in Germany: the Greens. The polls give them high credibility, so high that the possibility that the next chancellor is green cannot be ruled out. Of course, the sympathies of German voters may change in September, but the formation of a ruling majority without the Greens does not seem realistic. And this left-wing, or rather center-left party, goes to the polls with the promise of accelerating the abandonment of fossil fuels, defending human rights and the values of liberal democracy, further strengthening the EU, and various of its members oppose the completion of Nord Stream 2. In addition, a call for the closure of the gas pipeline has been posted on the Greens’ website, under which signatures in support of the proposal are being collected. The party rejects Russia’s hydrocarbon supplies to Germany and the EU from an environmental and foreign policy point of view.
US sanctions and the new government in Germany
In this situation, imagine that immediately after the October elections, while Gazprom is still laying the pipes at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, the Greens are sitting in Berlin to negotiate with their potential partners to discuss the program of the future government. What are the chances of them breaking their campaign promise and agreeing to go live with Nord Stream 2? And won’t they ask, as a kind of compromise, for some very serious restrictions on your work? Moscow seems to have focused too much on the US sanctions against Nord Stream 2. They are too sure that Berlin will give its blessing for the final realization of the Gazprom-Putin project. Although, in fact, the door that allows it to be carried out can be slammed shut in half a year.
Author: Andrey Gurkov
Germany
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