Day of diplomacy as tensions continue over Russia’s massive troops build-up on Ukraine border
When Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, meets the US president, Joe Biden, in the White House later on Monday, one issue will not be far away: Nord Stream 2.
The Baltic Sea gas pipeline between Russia to Germany has always been hugely controversial. Now complete but pending regulatory approval, it has been caught in the crosshairs of Ukraine’s security crisis. The US has said Nord Stream 2 will not go forward if Russia invades Ukraine; Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has promised it would be included as part of a “strong package of sanctions”.
But the one thing this pipeline is not, as lamely claimed by the former German chancellor Merkel, is a purely commercial project. It has vast geostrategic consequence, with every inch of pipe a pitched political and legal battle.
Indeed few engineering projects have thrown up so many issues: the restoration of the post-Soviet empire, the climate crisis, American bullying of Europe, Germany’s emotional embrace of Russia, the legal powers of the European Commission, corporate lobbying, energy forecasting, and Gazprom’s monopolistic model. Its fiercest critics have described it as a modern day betrayal on the scale of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939.
