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The draft US defense budget for 2021 enshrines sanctions against companies for facilitating the sale, lease or supply of vessels laid for the construction of the Turkish Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. And also for the provision of insurance or reinsurance services, services or premises for the technical modernization of ships related to the construction of gas pipelines.
The House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States Congress agreed and made amendments to the defense budget project for next year, providing tougher sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream gas pipelines.
The project foresees sanctions to facilitate the sale, lease or provision of laying vessels for the construction of gas pipelines, insurance and reinsurance provision, as well as services or facilities for the technical modernization of vessels associated with the construction of the gas pipeline.
The expansion of sanctions in the defense budget was considered in the draft version of the bill in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. Now the sanctions list has been agreed and approved.
At the same time, the Senate withdrew the amendment, which allows the President of the United States to refuse to sanction a person “if it is in the national interest.”
Additionally, both chambers require the introduction of personal sanctions against Turkey due to the purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems.
Nord Stream 2 is a gas pipeline that is supposed to connect Russia with Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The length of the route is more than 1200 km, the capacity of the new gas pipeline will be 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The cost of the project was initially reported to be € 9.9 billion, then, according to The New York Times, it grew to nearly $ 11 billion. It is financed in half by Russia’s Gazprom and five European companies: Anglo-Dutch Shell, German Wintershall and Uniper. , The French Engie and the Austrian OMV.
Authorities in the United States, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia consider Nord Stream 2 a threat to Europe’s energy security.
Construction of the gas pipeline was frozen when the United States imposed sanctions on European contractors involved in the project in December 2019. Immediately after this, the Swiss company Allseas suspended construction work on Nord Stream 2 and took its laying vessels from Baltic Sea pipelines. “Gazprom” announced the attraction of Russian pipelayers upon completion of the project.
On July 21, 2020, the House of Representatives, the lower house of the US Congress, approved the 2021 Department of Defense fiscal budget, which provides for new sanctions against Nord Stream 2. On July 23, the Senate approved the draft defense budget. The versions of the documents adopted by the House of Representatives and the Senate will be coordinated, after which they will be delivered to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, for his signature.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on September 1 that Nord Stream 2 would be completed despite threats from the United States.
On September 11, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline could be frozen in response to the poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
The Turkish Stream offshore gas pipeline connecting Russia’s Krasnodar Territory with Turkey and southern European countries was inaugurated on January 8 in Istanbul by Russian and Turkish Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan.
“Turkish Stream” consists of two lines. The first is intended for the Turkish market, the second for the southern and southeastern countries of Europe. In November 2018, Gazprom completed the construction of the offshore section of the pipeline.
In 2016, the then Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin declared that Russia needs the Turkish current to “avoid Ukraine and create a gas center in Turkey that is not subject to European rules.”
Trump signed the country’s defense budget for 2020 on December 20, 2019, which includes sanctions against the Turkish Stream gas pipeline.
According to NJSC Naftogaz Ukraine head Andrey Kobolev, in 2020 Ukraine will lose the capacity to transport 15 billion m³ of gas due to the Turkish current.
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