Failure with announcement
Stop for Nord Stream 2 is Merkel’s defeat
A comment by Jan Ganger
02/22/2022, 6:10 p.m
The shutdown of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline is overdue. The fact that the grand coalition under Angela Merkel made the project possible at all was a serious mistake.
The federal government is putting the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline on hold. To do this, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin first had to acknowledge the separatists’ drive to separate two Ukrainian regions, send troops there and deny Ukraine’s right to exist – but it’s better late than never to correct a mistake.
The new federal government can now withdraw from a project for which the grand coalition under Angela Merkel is responsible with half a face. She has consistently defended the pipeline, unflinchingly portraying it as a purely economic endeavor that really has nothing to do with geopolitics at all.
The grand coalition ignored other countries’ uneasiness about giving the Kremlin even more power through the pipeline in a way that can pass as arrogant. And the fact that Gerhard Schröder, a friend of Putin’s and former Chancellor, has strong ties to the project makes things even more unpleasant.
The Kremlin has repeatedly used gas supplies as a weapon and has turned off the tap in Ukraine, for example. Nord Stream 2 is a geopolitical declaration of bankruptcy. The pipeline increases the Kremlin’s influence over Germany and has the potential to divide Europe. It is grotesque that the Merkel government prevented the energy supply from being designed as a European project. The pipeline should never have been built.
It is economically feasible to do without Nord Stream 2. The gas requirements of Germany and the EU can also be covered without the new tube. Liquid gas from the USA is – despite fracking – one of the alternatives. Norway is another, North African countries another.
It is not yet clear whether Nord Stream 2 has finally failed. It is to be hoped that the traffic light coalition will permanently prevent commissioning. At the latest after the recent invasion of Russian troops in the Ukraine, it should be absolutely clear: Germany must free itself from its dependence on Russian gas as quickly as possible. An exit from Nord Stream 2 would be a good start.