It is a 1230 kilometer long pipe connecting Ust-Luga, Russia to the Lubmin terminal in Germany, via the Baltic Sea. Completed last September, Nord Stream 2 has never been used. However, this gas pipeline is a key element of the crisis which has pitted the Western camp against Vladimir Putin for several weeks, who has massed more than 100,000 soldiers near Ukraine. On Wednesday evening, the United States warned that “if Russia somehow invades Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 will be blocked”.
Will Europe’s most controversial energy infrastructure ever return to service? Until December, Chancellor Olaf Scholz presented the gas pipeline as a “purely private project”. Implied: not to get involved in the Ukrainian crisis. In recent weeks, as the noise of the boots grew louder in Russia, he nevertheless agreed that Nord Stream 2 could face sanctions, much to the relief of Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland and, above all, , Americans.
This gas pipeline has been poisoning relations between Berlin and Washington for several years. The United States considers this project as a flaw in the European security balance. Thanks to him, Russia could more easily do without the pipelines transiting through Ukraine to deliver its gas to Western Europe. A disaster for Kiev, which would lose both the economic manna of the right of passage (more than a billion euros per year) and its main life insurance against a Russian invasion.
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Dario Ingiusto / L’Express
Nord Stream 2 is indeed a German whim. “The first Nord Stream, commissioned in 2011, had the consent of Brussels, because it diversified European supply routes, while the second could have the opposite effect, points out Thierry Bros, professor at Sciences Po and specialist geopolitics of energy. This new gas pipeline only benefits Russia and Germany, which will strengthen its status as a hub for Russian gas in Western Europe.”
For all these reasons, the United States had multiplied threats and sanctions against the project, delaying its completion. They lifted them last year on the condition that Berlin agree that its expensive gas pipeline could be subject to sanctions if Moscow tries “to use energy as a weapon or commit other aggressive acts against regard to Ukraine”. An agreement nevertheless experienced as a betrayal by Kiev, unconvinced by these safeguards.
Starting Nord Stream 2 may just be a matter of months away. Admittedly, the certification of the project has been blocked since November, for administrative reasons. But the gas pipeline operator announced on Wednesday the creation of a German subsidiary which will own the section in German territorial waters and will operate it. Enough to relaunch the approval procedure and consider its next commissioning. Unless the Ukrainian crisis takes a dramatic turn.