‘What now?’ German village looks to a future without Nord Stream 2

A decade-long effort worth $11 billion to ship gas 1,200 km from Russia to Europe comes to an abrupt end in the German coastal village of Lubmin of 2,041 people.

The Kremlin-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline was suspended last month as part of international sanctions against Russia, before gas even started flowing. Now the huge tubes that protrude from the Baltic Sea at the northern port of Lubmin have become a curiosity – the metal coils that are photographed and admired by passers-by.

Once celebrated for bringing jobs to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, one of Germany’s poorest states, Nord Stream 2 has become an embarrassment.

“You could almost call what’s happening here at the weekend disaster tourism,” said Lubmin Mayor Alexander Vogt. “We are the community that takes Russian gas and helps Vladimir Putin – that’s what they say about us.”

The idle pipeline, meanwhile, is emblematic of Germany’s urgent need to break free from decades of economic ties with Moscow.

For years, Berlin refused to heed calls from its transatlantic ally Washington and eastern neighbors like Poland to reduce its energy dependence on Russia.

The government is now trying to find alternatives to the 55 percent of Germany’s gas, 50 percent of its coal and 30 percent of its oil that it imports from the country.

Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, Lubmin was under scrutiny as the terminus of a pipeline owned and built by Kremlin-backed Gazprom. US senators once threatened sanctions against Vogt, who manages the port where Nord Stream 2 is being built and a constituency so small his mayoralty is a volunteer post. Expressive hate mail has reached him in recent weeks.

“We have a completely completed project, only the certification was missing [ . . . ] Now what?” said Daniel Seiffert, a state parliamentarian for the left-wing party Die Linke, which once pushed for closer ties with Moscow.

If the pipeline remains mothballed, Seiffert wonders who will be responsible – the state or the federal government? “It’s a completely strange situation,” he said.

In Lubmin, locals say they now feel guilty about their region’s ties to Moscow. Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, part of the former East Germany on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, had hosted a “Russia Day” since 2014, which has now been canceled because of last month’s invasion. It also enjoyed cultural and educational exchanges – often funded by Nord Stream 2 and the first Nord Stream pipeline, which also brings Siberian gas to Europe via Lubmin.

“Less than six weeks ago I was defending Russia. My imagination was not strong enough to predict the horrific images we are seeing now,” said Heidi Moritz, a local hotel owner. “I’m appalled.”

Just last year, as Washington tightened sanctions on the pipeline, state politicians were still doggedly pushing for its completion – most unusually by a now-frozen “climate protection foundation” funded by Nord Stream 2.

Local leaders are quick to point out that Berlin also fought for the pipeline – something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confronted the Bundestag last week via video link: “When we told you that Nord Stream was a weapon and a preparation for a big war, the answer we heard was that it was an economy after all. Economy. economy,” he said. “Dear politicians, dear Germans, why is that possible?”

Less than 20 people were employed at Nord Stream 2 in Lubmin. But the cash windfall that the local economy had to gain was evident from the €2 million a year it already receives in taxes from the original Nord Stream.

Locals strolling along a scenic promenade on the Baltic coast say it was made possible by Nord Stream funds.

Other cities in the region had also hoped to make a profit. Now Seiffert fears that Germany could be pushed into a Russian fuel embargo.

“We here in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have the lowest wages and the lowest pensions in a national comparison,” he said. Many were living on such low salaries, he said, “that if this situation continues to deteriorate, people will despair.”

In Lubmin, Nord Stream 2 is not only the subject of economic disputes. It reflects generational and regional differences.

Over tea in their family hotel, Heidi Moritz and her grandson reminisce about years of discussions about Nord Stream 2. She is 74 and remembers a deprived post-war childhood and friendship with Russia. He’s 23 and a member of an environmental activist group that has long campaigned against Nord Stream 2, which he says has caused Germany to fail to meet its climate goals.

“I can’t say I’m relieved. It’s too little, too late,” said Fiedje Moritz about the pipeline stop.

Germany is now looking at alternatives to fossil fuels like liquefied natural gas, and he fears it’s not doing enough to push renewable energy. Meanwhile, the original Nord Stream is still pumping, he said.

“We’re not paying the price – we’re still paying Russia,” he said. “Our gas payments help fund this war.”

His grandmother argued that he had no experience of suffering like her. “The younger generations don’t even remember what it was like when there was no warm water coming out of the wall. Or if there’s no water at all — not even cold,” she said. “We Europeans are now too soft to accept things being taken away from us.”

It was hard for people like Heidi, who was born in the former East Germany, to turn against a pipeline that many here associated with her ties to Russia. Her contemporaries remember her graduation in Moscow or the Russian worker friends who built the now demolished Lubmin nuclear power plant.

Some locals hope that one day, as connections improve, the pipeline can be used for green hydrogen, a fuel whose industrial use is still hypothetical.

But like the revival of friendly ties between Germany and Russia, Heidi said, any chance of climate-friendly fuel flowing through the pipeline seems a long way off.

“We should admit what we should have had a long time ago,” she said. “We didn’t need the whole thing.”