European Parliament committee takes first EU step to block Nord Stream 2

A European Parliament committee voted on March 21 to
extend the rules of the internal EU natural gas market to apply to the Russian
Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, potentially blocking its construction. In
particular, amendments to the gas directive of the Third Energy Package will
extend its rules to apply to the underwater pipelines connecting to third-party
providers, reported the Reuters news agency. If the new Third Energy Package
rules are extended to Nord Stream, then it will need an independent operator,
the kommersant.ru news site reported. As the single shareholder in Nord Stream
2, Gazprom either has to sell the company or remain only as its financial investor,
having lost the ability to influence its operations.

Foreign firms working on the Nord Stream 2 project
“could expose themselves to sanctions under the Countering America’s
Adversaries Though Sanctions Act (CAAATSA),” U.S. State Department spokeswoman
Heather Nauert told a March 21 press conference. The U.S. government has spent
a lot of time recently speaking with allies to explain CAATSA and how “an
individual or a company or a country” could violate its conditions and fall
under sanctions, she said. Several days ago, 39 U.S. senators sent a letter to
Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan in stressing their opposition towards
Nord Stream 2 and urging the Trump administration “to utilize all of the tools
at its disposal to prevent its construction.

Ukrainian Parliamentary Speaker Andriy Parubiy called
upon EU member-states on March 21 to impose sanctions against companies
involving in constructing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. He stressed that the
parliamentary speakers of Lithuania, Poland and Moldova joined him in recently
signing a letter addressed to the EU declaring Nord Stream 2 to be an
unacceptable project that threatens Ukraine’s energy security. Recall, Nord
Stream 2 aims to create a direct natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany
and eliminating the need for the current pipeline that crosses Ukraine,
Slovakia, Austria and Czech Republic. The project’s twin pipelines are
scheduled for completion by the end of 2019.

Zenon Zawada: It’s quite a cognitive dissonance in EU foreign policy to be imposing
sanctions against Russia for its military occupation of Ukraine, yet at the
same time turning a blind eye to the Nord Stream 2, which has the same
objective of conducting economic aggression against Ukraine and undermining its
independence. Western leaders are only now starting to take serious action
against Nord Stream 2, which is intended to deprive countries such as Ukraine,
Slovakia and Austria any remaining influence in gas transit (including
revenue), which will consequently result in reduced foreign policy influence.
Time will tell whether this action is too little, too late, considering how
fare the project has progressed. As recently as January, the German government
granted Nord Stream 2 a permit for construction and operation in German waters.