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Towards the end of her career as Chancellor, Angela Merkel is forced to face the serious consequences of one of her decisions. He is a long-time supporter of the construction of the second Nord Stream gas pipeline, but it seems that in addition to the American one, the Polish leadership has also decided that they can only complete the almost completed project through his body.
Angela Merkel has always supported the construction of the $ 11 billion Nord Stream 2 (VAT) gas pipeline, which will create a direct transportation route between Russia and Germany at the bottom of the North Sea, but her country also seems to have to bear the costs. non-monetary project. wrote Bloomberg, which is investigating the consequences of the Polish competition authority’s decision against Russia’s Gazprom. It is not new that the laying of the gas pipeline is detrimental to the interests of many smaller Eastern European countries (Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland) which will therefore lose most of the transit revenue they receive over decades to transmit Russian gas exports to Western Europe.
It has also long been clear that the US Congress is determined to delay the project, as Washington views Russia as a high-capacity gas pipeline that could increase its weight in Europe’s gas supplies, thereby strengthening dependence. Russian energy company from the continent. However, Poland took an unexpectedly tough step with the Warsaw Competition Authority imposing a € 6.5 billion fine on Gazprom, a gas exporter, saying FW2. Construction will increase the dominance of Russian companies in the Polish and European gas markets.
Move obstacles
Warsaw and Washington are throwing obstacles one after the other to complete the pipeline, which irritates Berlin, explains E. Wayne Merry, a regional expert at the US Foreign Policy Council in Washington. In practice, the sovereignty of Germany in this matter is limited by crossing the project. At the same time, Merkel’s stubborn persistence in addition to the pipeline also worries Germany’s other allies because they see Germany’s dependence on Russia increasing.
For Merkel, the fact that she has repeatedly asked other countries for sacrifices during her long career as European leader is a huge area of attack. For example, during the Greek debt crisis, he asked them for a financial contribution, and during the refugee crisis, he expected them to take care of some of the arrivals for the duration of his refugee claim. Now other EU countries would expect great sacrifices from him.
More recently, in connection with the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, allegedly ordered by the government, came in response to the FDA shutdown until Moscow investigates the matter properly. termination. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki strongly supported this, but in the end, with some financial and entry restrictions, the EU responded symbolically to the Navalny case. Merkel refused to link the two.
The new cable as a generator of problems
Frontal attack
The decision by the Polish competition authority, which also incurs a fine of up to one-tenth of Gazprom’s annual revenue, places the EU’s sixth-largest state ahead of the first in terms of population. Furthermore, Polish-German relations have been affected by another issue since the far-right Law and Justice Party came to power five years ago. The Polish ruling party believes that Poland has not received sufficient reparations from the Germans for crimes committed in World War II, and the 1953 agreement on this was signed by a Soviet puppet government under pressure from Moscow. They think it would be time for Berlin to pay a lot more money.
EU rules allow the Polish authorities to request other countries to recover the penalty imposed on Gazprom on their behalf. However, it is also true that the responsible European Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, made a cautious statement on the case, saying that the Polish competition authority’s decision against Gazprom was “new” for her. The Polish move is a new obstacle for the FW2. After launching a lengthy legal debate with appeals, sums up the German Social Democratic MP Timon Gremmels.
And the Russians obviously won’t leave it that way.
Andrei Klimov, deputy chairman of the international committee of the upper house of the Russian legislature, sees Poland’s anti-Russian policy against both Berlin and Moscow. He also kindly threatened Warsaw leaders, saying that Russia could respond in different ways to the hostile decision of the Polish competition authority. According to him, he does not consider Gazprom’s appeal to be the only step.
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