Germany is betting the U.S. administration will take a pragmatic approach to the Nord Stream 2 project to ship Russian gas to Europe and is pushing for the pipeline’s completion in defiance of U.S. opposition, officials and diplomats said.

To try to block the $11 billion project, led by Russia’s Gazprom (GAZP.MM), successive U.S. administrations have imposed sanctions on some entities and warned other companies involved in the project about the sanctions risk. read more

President Joe Biden thinks the pipeline under the Baltic Sea to Germany is “a bad idea for Europe,” the White House has said.

Nord Stream 2 will bypass Western ally Ukraine, potentially depriving it of valuable transit fees. It will also increase European energy dependency on Russia and compete with shipments of U.S. liquefied natural gas.

Berlin is calculating the best strategy is to present the United States with a done deal in the form of a finished project, diplomats and officials said.

The pipeline is already around 95% built, and could be finished by September, analysts who monitor tracking data say, leaving the Biden administration little time to come up with more measures to thwart it.

“Berlin is trying to buy time and make sure that the construction is finished, because they think that once the pipeline is onstream, things will look differently (to the United States),” a senior EU diplomat briefed on the issue said.

Like other officials who spoke to Reuters, the diplomat declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Although Washington has publicly said it will keep working against Nord Stream 2, German officials and EU diplomats believe there is room for negotiation. read more

“Berlin believes there’s a willingness in Washington to talk about this and find a solution,” a second EU diplomat also briefed on German thinking said.

Berlin has yet to begin substantive discussions with the Biden administration on Nord Stream 2, and does not definitively know the U.S. position.

‘GERMAN PROBLEM’

Washington continues to engage the German government at multiple levels to make the sanctions risk clear, a senior U.S. State Department official said.

While Biden opposes the project, however, he is also attempting to repair relations with Europe.

“We don’t see this as something where the U.S. has to come to the table with options. This is a German problem that the Germans actually created,” the official said.

Germany has no plans to make proposals either.

“We are not presenting a list of offers – nor has the U.S. government demanded anything,” a senior German government official said.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is waiting for his first face-to-face meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, possibly at the end of this month if Blinken attends a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, German diplomats said.

Maas has defended Nord Stream 2 as a private, not a political enterprise and the companies involved have repeatedly said the justification for the link is commercial.

Germany also says the pipeline will give Europe greater security from gas supply disruptions, and that it has protected Kyiv by ensuring Russia continues to export some of its gas via Ukraine.