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The White House has dropped its vehement resistance, and engineers are already preparing to complete the last stage of the pipeline in German waters. Joe Biden could have made the project a stillbirthday by activating financial sanctions against the pipeline’s corporate group. He has concluded that as much as he regrets Nord Stream 2, there is a more pressing need to keep Germany by his side and not press Putin into a full strategic alliance with China. He plays Kissinger the other way around.
It’s not an unfortunate spectacle. Washington and Berlin jointly decided on the grim fate of Ukraine – with no one from Kiev at the table – and pretended it was not a modern Yalta.
They did so after Mr Putin said in an almost mocking tone last month that Ukraine must show “goodwill†in exchange for gas flows (as soon as the Nord Stream 2 alternative means he no longer needs it). Ukrainians can expect to freeze to death this winter if they don’t follow his instructions.
The Foreign Ministry says the deal will “ensure that Russia cannot turn energy flows into weapons”. There are strong words about the (unspecified) consequences if Gazprom cuts off gas supplies to Ukraine. Nobody believes a word of it.
This American-German betrayal is not the end of the story. The US Congress is on the warpath and has ordered sanctions on Nord Stream 2 that Mr Biden cannot completely ignore. Republican Congressman Steve Womack described the deal as “one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in recent history.”
Putin still faces the possibility that Capitol Hill could impose crippling penalties on pipeline operators and stop gas flows even after the project starts.
His aim for the time being is to create a maximum of political influence in order to bring the European regulatory authorities under control. He wants the German regulator to step back from previous demands for “unbundling†(separation of ownership from operations), which will reduce Gazprom’s share to 50 percent of the flows.
Second, he wants the Commission to carry out the certification in the shortest possible time. In the past, this would have been a safe assumption. Sensitive at every stage of this pathetic story, Brussels has been exposed in leaked documents for violating its own legal regime in favor of Gazprom.
But the Commission can no longer act with the same breathtaking cynicism. Poland has just won a crucial case before the European Court of Justice (C-848 / 19P Germany v Poland) regarding Nord Stream 1 and the Opal pipeline. The judges ruled that the principle of energy solidarity is legally binding under Article 194. The Commission must now consider the energy supply risk for all Member States. It fundamentally changes the picture.
Russia adopts the legal order of the EU in the broadest sense. He’s withholding gas in hopes of forcing Europe to overrule its own Supreme Court. This is a high stake game of chance. “The Kremlin is inadvertently creating an existential threat to the European Union,” said Prof. Riley.
The EU institutions and states cannot take this lightly. Either Putin gives in or the gas war will escalate into a crisis this winter.
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