"The bridges are burned." Gazprom delivered an ultimatum to Germany and the EU
The implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project may be delayed or suspended due to political pressure.
This was reported by Reuters with reference to the prospectus for the placement of Eurobonds of the Gazprom company, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“While implementing our large international projects, such as the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, we have faced and may continue to face risks associated with changes in the political situation in various regions associated with such projects. In exceptional circumstances, including due to political pressure, such changes may lead to the suspension or termination of the project,” Gazprom said in its prospectus.
“This, of course, is a clear signal that the bridges have been burned,” political scientist Alexey Chesnakov commented on the news on his Telegram channel.
“So the Germans began to define new frameworks of behavior...
I thought that first the British would begin to hang ribbons, but apparently they decided that the Germans were wrong to interpret our politeness and gentleness as weakness and willingness to agree to any of their conditions,” says Dmitry Evstafiev, a professor at the Higher School of Economics.
Political scientist Marat Bashirov believes that Gazprom’s statement is not an ultimatum, but, on the contrary, a step towards compromise.
“As a result, American companies will enter SP-2, and everything will calm down,” Bashirov wrote.
Construction of the gas pipeline was suspended at the end of 2019, when the United States included sanctions against companies participating in the project in the defense budget. Because of this, the Nord Stream 2 pipelayer, the Swiss company Allseas, withdrew its vessels from the construction zone.
On December 11, 2020, the Russian pipe-laying vessel Fortuna began completing the construction of a section of the gas pipeline in the exclusive economic zone of Germany. On January 15, the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie, BSH) announced that it had issued permission for the construction of two sections of Nord Stream 2 with a length of 16,5 and 13,9 km. On January 18, it became known that German environmentalists had achieved the suspension of the construction permit.
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