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Merkel does not rule out the possibility that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project faces consequences if Russia does not investigate in detail the poisoning of opposition leader Navaln, Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert confirmed on Monday.
When asked if Merkel would protect Russia’s multi-billion dollar gas pipeline project to Germany if Germany sought to impose sanctions on Russia for the Navaln poisoning, Seibert said: “The Chancellor thinks it would be wrong to reject something from the start.”
While there is no indication that Merkel intends to “disconnect”, these comments only reinforce the recent outrage against President Vladimir Putin in Berlin and suggest that a serious debate is beginning in Merkel’s ruling coalition. The German leader has consistently supported the pipeline project, despite opposition from the United States and some European Union allies.
“Of course, I hope that the Russians do not force us to change our position,” Maas told Bild am Sonntag on Sunday. If Russia does not clarify what happened to Navaln in the “next few days,” Germany “will have to consult with our partners on a possible response,” he said.
Pressure on a Gazprom-led project has increased after an investigation in a German military laboratory confirmed that a Russian opposition figure had been poisoned with material from the same group as the nerve paralyzing substance Novičiok. The Berlin office did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
Russian officials say there is no evidence that Navaln has been poisoned and deny any role for the government due to his illness. They crossed back, accusing Germany of obstructing the investigation. On Sunday night, Maas said it was just “another fog.”
“I’m afraid we will have more of the same tactics in the next few days,” Maas told ARD television in an interview. “It would be a mistake to rule out from the outset that what is happening here will not affect the Nord Stream 2 project,” he added.
Coalition officials noted that there is still little tendency to abandon the pipeline.
“Individual measures that have already been initiated or made public do not help us,” said Rolf Mutzenich, chairman of the influential Bundestage of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Germany needs to discuss a joint response with the Allies in the context of Russian cooperation, he added.
Merkel strongly condemned the use of Novičiok, a substance that paralyzed combat nerves, and promised a coordinated response from NATO members and the EU.
During a press conference on Thursday, he did not reiterate his demand, made a few days before, that the project be completed.
German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, president of the ruling German Christian Democratic Union (CDU), also said any response depended on “behavior on the Russian side,” according to Reuters. She did not rule out the possibility that the answer could be related to Nord Stream.
Germany, even if it does not abandon the entire project, could declare a moratorium on the completion of the gas pipeline, or support the idea of completing it, but stop the gas transit, wrote foreign politician German Christian Democrat (CDU) Roderich Kiesewetter on Twitter.
Amalena Baerbock, one of the leaders of the opposition Green Party, did not stop there, stating that the project was “a mistake from the beginning.”
“Not only from an ecological point of view, because he is building a pipeline that will remain there for decades, but also in a geopolitical sense,” Baerbock told ZDF television in an interview on Monday. The project will make Germany more dependent on Russia and therefore must be stopped, he said.
Dominic Raab, the UK’s foreign secretary, told the BBC on Sunday that Russia “must answer” for the suspected poisoning, given its “reputation”. Although it is too early to blame Russia for its involvement in this story, “it is very difficult to find a compelling alternative explanation,” she said.
Russia is linked to two previous poisonings in the UK, when Novichok material was used in 2018 to attempt to poison former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil.
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