Brussels, 11 September (WNM) - Margrethe Vestager, Vice-President designate of the future EU Commission, sees no need for the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. The construction of a second gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea "doesn't make sense", the Danish daily told the weekly Die Zeit. Nord Stream 2 is "not a European project". Vestager stresses that Europe needs a gas infrastructure, gas being a "flexible fossil fuel" and a "base load for renewable energies". But in the Baltic Sea there is already a pipeline leading from Russia to Germany, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which according to Vestager needs no duplication..
As managing vice-president, Vestager will be in charge of competition and digital sectors. She will be in the position to put on pressure on all amrekt participants to aplly with the rules of the European energy union.
Her rejection of Nord Stream 2 is likely to be acclaimed in the US - the US government has repeatedly spoken out against the project and is currently threatening the companies involved with sanctions. As the competition commissioner, Vestager has so far focused primarily on the US companies Google and Facebook. However, this poses no problem for the Trump administration because Trump himself has been very critical of the social networks and their monopolistic market position. The rejection of Nord Stream 2, on the other hand, is of crucial importance for US energy policy because the US is hoping to take market share from Russia in the European energy market by selling LNG to the Europeans.
The new EU Energy Commissioner Simson is also an opponent of the project. She wants to strengthen the transatlantic energy partnership (more here: https://world-news-monitor.com/top-news/2019/09/10/new-eu-energy-commissioner-has-so-far-been-against-nord-stream-2/).
The pipeline is already under construction and should significantly increase the capacity of the existing Nord Stream 1 pipeline for Russian gas supplies to Germany. The project is controversial because it would further weaken the strategic and economic importance of alternative pipelines and traditional transit countries. Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States are against the project because they fear a loss of revenue.
The Nord Stream 2 consortium is led by the Russian Gazprom group, which is providing half of the financing for the EUR 9.5 billion project. The German companies Uniper and Wintershall are among the parties involved.
According to the company, more than 1900 kilometers of pipes have been laid in the waters of Germany, Sweden, Finland and Russia in the Baltic Sea. The total length of the double-run pipeline is a good 2400 kilometers.