BERLIN, May 23. /TASS/. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is actively backing a proposed EU ban on the Nord Stream pipelines, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper said, citing sources.
European Commission (EC) president Ursula von der Leyen last week mentioned Nord Stream as part of the “new package of sanctions” her team was working on, the paper wrote. She made those remarks having first consulted with Merz, who gave his support for the move, according to a person familiar with the discussions. “It is correct that the [German] chancellor actively supports sanctions against Nord Stream 2,” a government spokesman said.
Three officials familiar with the matter told the FT that the chancellor sought to quell any domestic debates about the merits of a potential reactivation of the project. Adding Nord Stream to the EU sanctions list “potentially removes a political problem for him”, the newspaper said.
The EU restrictions would target Nord Stream 2 AG, the Switzerland-based entity that owns the pipelines, and any other companies – Russian or otherwise – that are necessary for its restart and operation, people familiar with the plans told the paper. The EC planned to start discussing potential sanctions with governments of EU members this week.
The construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was completed on September 10, 2021. The gas pipeline consists of two strings with a total capacity of 55 billion cubic meters per year, which run from the coast of Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. On September 26, 2022, unprecedented destruction was recorded on three strings of Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2. As a result, only one string of the latter gas pipeline survived. The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation initiated a case on an act of international terrorism. It is currently impossible to determine the time frame for restoring the gas pipelines’ operability.
