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As German Chancellor, Schroeder actively defended Russia’s first gas export pipeline across the Baltic Sea to Germany’s Nord Stream project. The Kremlin’s favor, Schroeder, later became chairman of the shareholders committee of its operator Nord Stream AG, and since September 2017 has also chaired the board of directors of Russia’s largest oil company, Rosneft.
“We are talking about German and European companies. If the project fails, 12 billion will have to be transferred to losses. Schroeder said on Wednesday during an open hearing in the German Parliament (Bundestage) about the Nord Stream 2 project, to which he was invited as an expert.
He recalled that the US planned to impose new sanctions on the pipeline project and its participants, which “was not the first attempt by the US to interfere with German energy policy.”
According to Mr Schroeder, these sanctions are intended to take control of the EU’s energy policy and indicate how Germany should behave.
“This should be rejected in light of our national interests,” he said.
Schroeder has wrongly argued that the pipeline will increase the European Union’s dependency on Russia.
As previously announced, a bill drafted by representatives of both parties on the extension of sanctions in Nord Stream 2 was presented to the United States House of Representatives late last week. This bill is in line with what was presented to the United States Senate earlier last month. Therefore, both houses of the United States Congress will now simultaneously consider additional restrictive measures for the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project.
On Tuesday, the United States Senate included additional sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in the United States’ defense budget bill.
Following the imposition of sanctions on United States President Donald Trump at Nord Stream 2 on December 20, 2019, Swiss Allseas halted construction of the pipeline on three special vessels. The pipeline was 94 percent built, project implementation halted.
Gazprom, controlled by the Kremlin, which is the sole shareholder of the project development company, expects to complete the pipeline this year with its own multipurpose construction ship, Akademik Čersky.
Gazprom’s partners in the project (Wintershall from Germany and Uniper, OMV from Austria, Engie from France, Dutch Shell from Great Britain and the Netherlands) are co-financiers and future beneficiaries.
Current Washington sanctions target ships directly involved in laying pipelines underwater. The targets of the new sanctions are ship insurers and service companies that perform geodetic, trenching, welding and other work. The sanctions would also be aimed at companies that test and certify pipelines, that is, works that do not allow pipelines to come into operation.
55 billion The annual Nord Stream 2 cubic meter pipeline in the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany is being placed alongside the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which has been in operation for over eight years and has the same capacity.
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