Congress Increases Attacks on Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2, but German Industry Retaliates

Dec. 12, 2019 (EIRNS)—Following a vote by the vast majority of the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 9 for sanctions against Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, German industry called on the Berlin government to launch counter-sanctions. Matthias Schepp, president of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce, said yesterday, “we should respond to sanctions that cause damage to Europe with counter-sanctions.... It is about time that Berlin and Brussels take a clear-cut position and respond with targetted countermeasures.”

U.S. sanctions would hit all European companies taking part in the construction of the pipeline, and all leading officials of those companies, whom the U.S. would henceforth deny visas, and would seize their U.S. bank accounts. These sanctions would affect companies like ENGIE, OMV, Shell, Uniper and Wintershall Dea.

So far, 2100 km of the pipeline in the Baltic Sea have been completed, and work on the remaining 300 km has begun, after Denmark gave the go-ahead in October for the project to proceed in its territorial waters. Congress also voted sanctions against the TurkStream pipeline, which would bring Russian gas to Europe via Turkey, and whose underwater section in the Black Sea has been completed, with the Bulgarian land section of 474 km awaiting the go-ahead. The sanctions aim to sabotage that section of the pipeline. The Russians, however, have warned that if the Bulgarian section cannot be built, another route across the Balkans would be considered.