Germany says Nord Stream 2 will never be launched

BERLIN, 19 Sep – PRIME. Nord Stream 2 will never be put into operation, said the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Stefan Weil (SPD).

Nord Stream 2 will never be launched,” Weill said in an interview with the German news agency dpa.

The politician believes that no matter who manages Russia, gas will never go from Russia to Germany via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

“The loss of trust is so fundamental that there will never again be a situation in which the German government can rely on energy from Russia,” Weil said. In his opinion, energy cooperation with Russia was “irrevocably destroyed”, while he believes that the West will recover from this faster than Russia.

Nord Stream 2 stretches from the coast of Russia across the Baltic Sea to Germany and consists of two strings with a total capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Its construction was fully completed in September 2021, and work was underway on the launch, which included both technical measures and obtaining regulatory approvals, primarily from the German authorities. However, the German government, after Russia recognized the sovereignty of the DNR and LNR in February, stopped the certification. German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock said that “the project is actually frozen.” In addition, the US Department of the Treasury on February 23 imposed sanctions on the operator of the Nord Stream 2 AG project and its chief executive Matthias Warnig.

After the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, the West stepped up sanctions pressure on Russia, which led to an increase in prices for electricity, fuel and food in Europe and the United States. At the same time, as Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out, the policy of containing and weakening Russia is a long-term strategy of the West, and sanctions have dealt a serious blow to the entire global economy. Last week, he noted that if Europe does not have enough gas, “it is impatient and hard,” then the sanctions on Nord Stream 2 should be lifted.