The Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg called on Monday at the meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers in Brussels for the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline to go into operation quickly. The project is “finished, now we should use it”, said Schallenberg, who is again chief diplomat after an interlude as Chancellor. In view of the recent tensions with Moscow in the Ukraine conflict, Schallenberg stressed that he thought it would be a mistake to question the pipeline every time a discussion with Russia arises. Like Germany, Austria also obtains natural gas from Russia. The Austrian OMV group is involved in the pipeline.
Schallenberg takes a slightly different position than Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Baerbock had spoken out against the rapid commissioning of Nord Stream 2 in the ZDF-heute journal on Sunday evening. She emphasized that the pipeline “does not meet the requirements of European energy law and that security issues are still in the room”.
Gas prices rose significantly
Baerbock now referred to the ongoing procedure in Germany: “The Federal Network Agency has just suspended the certification process because there are clear requirements in European energy law,” she said. Accordingly, the pipeline “could” not yet be put into operation, with Baerbock expressly saying that it “spoke in the subjunctive” because discussions about a solution were ongoing.
In principle, the two things have nothing to do with each other: The Bonn authority temporarily stopped the procedure for the Baltic Sea pipeline in mid-November because the operator – the state-owned Russian Gazprom group – is not organized under German law. Accordingly, Gazprom has to found a German subsidiary and transfer all assets to this subsidiary. The company has been in this process for a few weeks. The EU Commission will examine whether the pipeline also complies with European law when the procedure in Germany has been completed. There, however, it is a question of whether the pipeline belongs to the so-called energy package. As part of this regulation, it must be ensured that the operator of a pipeline does not disadvantage other suppliers.
According to these statements, gas prices rose significantly on the energy markets on Monday.
Poland is also against Nord Stream 2. During the visit to Warsaw on Sunday, the Polish Prime Minister asked Chancellor Olaf Scholz to prevent the pipeline from going into operation. The project will increase Russia’s ability to put pressure on the EU and tighten the “political and energetic noose” around Ukraine, he said. Scholz affirmed that Germany will continue to be responsible for Ukraine’s gas transit business in the future. Ukraine will also be supported in the expansion of renewable energies. Scholz did not comment on the current debate about the pipeline.
The EU foreign affairs officer Josep Borrell said on Deutschlandfunk on Sunday that the EU Commission considered Nord Stream 2 “not necessary”. Brussels will check compliance with European law when the German procedure is complete. The Kremlin said there was currently no need for action because the approval before the German authorities was on an administrative path. According to the Russian state news agency Tass, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov said on Monday that it would not be expedient to rush to discuss things now because the “bureaucratic, technical and legal” process was still ongoing.
“Support only economically”
At their meeting in Brussels on Monday, the EU foreign ministers put those responsible for the so-called Wagner group on the sanctions list. In addition to Ukraine, the mercenaries are also deployed in Central Africa, Libya and Syria. The EU has not yet imposed any sanctions on western mercenary troops such as Academi (formerly Blackwater).
Regarding the international tensions in the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s role in the crisis, the Moscow daily Kommersant wrote on Monday: “After the negotiations between the presidents of Russia and the USA, Ukraine has become a central issue for Washington and its Euro-Atlantic allies. The US and the West have now identified the situation around this country as the most important threat to security in Europe. And they are therefore changing their strategy by defining the framework for possible support for Kiev. ”
According to Kommersant, the US and its allies want to “only support Ukraine economically”. It is true that they warned Russia of the “terrible consequences” of aggression. But at the same time, they said, “they let Ukraine understand that they will not protect the country with armed force”. Gustav Gressel, Senior Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations, said on Monday at a conference of the Ukrainian Embassy in Berlin and the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP) in Berlin that it was an “unintentional mistake” by US President Joe Biden had been to put the sentence “the US will not send troops to Ukraine” in the room. It is necessary to keep this option on the table in order to “complicate the war planning of Russian President Vladimir Putin”: “Even if Putin only needed a week to win – he has to know that a lot can happen in one week . “He said at the conference that there was no other way than de-escalation and called on Russia to work towards a solution through diplomatic channels.
The Russian newspaper also sees the West’s call for a peaceful solution confirmed by statements from Kiev: “This was also recently made clear in the interview with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Selensykj, who relies on the determination of the Western allies and is now considering the possibility of this To have the conflict area Donbass in the east decide on its future itself in a referendum. “
On the Ukrainian side, the interview that Zelenskyi gave to TV channel 1 + 1 a few days ago is interpreted differently: Zelenskyi replied to the journalist’s question about the future of Donbass and the opinion of the Ukrainian citizens that he had the possibility of one All-Ukrainian referendums on Donbass, Crimea and the end of the war in general, according to diplomatic circles to the Berliner Zeitung.
A referendum is only one of several ways to hear the opinion of Ukrainians. Citizens’ opinion was very important on such an important issue. However, it is not a question of such a referendum being prepared at the moment. Only the option would not have been ruled out, so the circles. (with AFP and dpa)