{"id":4683,"date":"2019-12-29T06:50:39","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T06:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=4683"},"modified":"2019-12-29T06:50:39","modified_gmt":"2019-12-29T06:50:39","slug":"germany-tells-us-to-back-off-over-russian-pipeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=4683","title":{"rendered":"Germany tells US to back off over Russian pipeline"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERLIN \u2014<\/strong>\u00a0Germany on Thursday warned Washington to mind its own business after US lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill that would sanction contractors working on a Russian pipeline to Germany.<\/p>\n

“European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the US,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Twitter.<\/p>\n

“We reject external interference,” he said.<\/p>\n

The 9.5 billion euro ($10.6 billion) Nord Stream 2 pipeline will run under the Baltic Sea and is set to double shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany.<\/p>\n

The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce (AHK) said the pipeline was important for the energy security of Europe as a whole and called for retaliatory sanctions against the United States if the bill passes.<\/p>\n

“Europe should respond to sanctions that damage Europe with counter-sanctions,” said AHK chief Matthias Schepp.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the 1,230-kilometer (760-mile) line say it will be a reliable source of cheap energy but critics warn it could end up vastly increasing Russia’s political influence in Europe.<\/p>\n

The EU joined in criticizing proposed US action.<\/p>\n

EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said Brussels “opposes the imposition of sanctions against any EU companies conducting legitimate business”.<\/p>\n

“The (European) Commission objective has always been to ensure that Nord Stream operates in a very transparent and in a non-discriminatory way with the appropriate degree of oversight,” he said.<\/p>\n

Germany’s Schepp said the sanctions would end up affecting European companies more than Russia.<\/p>\n

Half of the project is financed by Russian gas giant Gazprom, with the rest covered by its European partners: Germany’s Wintershall and Uniper, Anglo-Dutch Shell, France’s Engie and Austria’s OMV.<\/p>\n

Despite its own diplomatic tensions with Russia, including over the murder of a former Chechen rebel in Berlin earlier this year, Germany has repeatedly defended the long-running project.<\/p>\n

The German economy ministry said it was awaiting the result of a US Senate vote expected next week on the bill \u2014 part of much wider US defense legislation.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump has already said he would sign off on the measures if they are approved.<\/p>\n

The bill requires the US State Department to report back within 60 days with the names of companies and individuals involved in pipe-laying for Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream, another pipeline from Russia to Turkey.<\/p>\n

The sanctions envisioned by the bill include asset freezes and revocation of US visas for the contractors.<\/p>\n

One major contractor that could be hit by the sanctions is Swiss-based pipeline laying company Allseas, which has been hired by Gazprom to build the offshore section.<\/p>\n

The power of Gazprom and therefore the Russian state is at the center of concerns about the pipeline in the United States and in eastern and central Europe.<\/p>\n

Europe is Russia’s main customer for natural gas and critics fear the pipeline, which has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters, will increase its reliance.<\/p>\n

Countries like Ukraine, a major transit country for Russian gas, also fear they could lose influence.<\/p>\n

Russia had hoped to launch the pipeline in late 2019 but the completion has been delayed by difficulties in obtaining permits from Denmark.<\/p>\n

In October, Copenhagen gave Russia a permit to build a section of the pipeline on the Danish continental shelf in the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak told reporters last month that he expected the pipeline to become operational in mid-2020. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BERLIN \u2014\u00a0Germany on Thursday warned Washington to mind its own business after US lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill that would sanction contractors working on a Russian pipeline to Germany. “European…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[46,48,57,68,76,77,82,86,87,90,96,99,103,107,109,111,113,137,139,146,148,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,262,263,267,277,279,280,285,288],"class_list":["post-4683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-cyprus","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-egypt","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-turkey","tag-unclos","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}