Germany halts Nord Stream 2 approval over Russian recognition of Ukraine ‘republics’
Germany has stopped the certification process for the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in reaction to Russia’s recognition of the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk in east Ukraine, chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced.
Germany’s energy minister, Robert Habeck, on Tuesday morning instructed the withdrawal of an assessment required to authorise the pipeline between Russia and Germany.
“This may sound technical, but it is the necessary administrative step without which the pipeline cannot be certified,” Scholz said at a press conference in Berlin at midday. “Without this certification Nord Stream 2 cannot go into operation”.
Scholz said he has commissioned a new assessment into Germany’s energy security in the light of geopolitical developments in east Ukraine.
The German leader described Putin’s recognition of the Russian-controlled territories as a “grave breach” of international law that broke with decades of agreements between Russia and the west. “The situation today is fundamentally different,” he said.
First announced in 2015, the $11bn (£8.3bn) pipeline owned by Russia’s state-backed energy giant Gazprom has been built to carry gas from western Siberia to Lubmin in Germany’s north-east, doubling the existing capacity of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and keeping 26m German homes warm at an affordable price.
The construction of the pipeline was completed last September and its operator says it is already filled with gas and ready to go into use, pending permission from German authorities.
Social Democrat Scholz, who was sworn in as German chancellor last December, has skirted around the Nord Stream 2 debate in the first weeks of his tenure, with his spokespeople initially sticking to the line that the
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