Nord Stream 2, Russia’s gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea, has already driven a wedge between Germany and the US and sown discord in Europe. Now, as fears mount that Russia will attack Ukraine, it has become a bone of contention inside the German government itself.
Germany’s coalition partners are split on the pipeline, which its critics say will hugely increase Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas, with the left-ofcentre Social Democrats largely backing it and the Greens opposed.
Green foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, who will make her first official trip as foreign minister to Kyiv on Monday and Moscow on Tuesday, has indicated that Nord Stream 2, which is complete but has yet to be certified, cannot go ahead if Russia invades its western neighbor.
The Social Democrats, who have traditionally favored entente with Moscow, are more ambivalent, insisting on the importance of Russian gas for German industry. SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to publicly entertain sanctions against the project.
The divisions “are weakening Germany and the EU”, said Stefan Meister, an expert on Eastern Europe at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). “We are seeing that the German government has no consolidated position and is . . . still looking for a Russia policy,” he said.
The split was underscored again this week when two senior SPD politicians went out of their way to try to ringfence Nord Stream 2 from the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Defense minister Christine Lambrecht said the pipeline “shouldn’t be dragged into this conflict”. And Kevin Kühnert, SPD general secretary, said international disputes were being deliberately encouraged “in order to bury projects that have always been a thorn in the side of some people” — an apparent dig at the Greens.
The contrast with the rhetoric coming from Baerbock could not be clearer.
She has repeatedly made reference to an agreement between the US and
Germany in July last year which said Berlin would impose energy sanctions on Moscow “should Russia attempt to use energy as a weapon or commit further aggressive acts against Ukraine”.