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German Prime Minister Friedrich Merz has “actively” supported the proposed EU ban on the Nodal Stream pipeline connecting Russia to Germany in order to stop US and Russia’s efforts to reinvigorate the gas link.
Earlier this week, the Mertz government said it had approved the ban as part of the bloc’s upcoming sanctions on Russia due to the war in Ukraine. According to three officials familiar with the issue, the prime minister tried to quell the domestic debate about the potential revitalization benefits.
A report on Russian and American businessmen linked to the Kremlin in March urged American businessmen to resume their privately owned pipelines to start a discussion about Berlin and Brussels officials and how to prevent it, people said.
Adding a node stream to the EU sanctions list “may eliminate political issues for him,” they said.
The punitive measures are also how Mertz “Europetizes” the fate of the pipeline, not Berlin faces potential US-Russia pressures on itself, according to another source.
After three explosions were damaged in 2022, none of the four pipelines currently disabled are state-controlled, but Berlin must grant certification for gas link activation.
The EU restrictions target Nord Stream 2 AG, a Swiss-based entity that owns the pipeline. Other companies (Russian or others) are necessary for their restart and operation.
European Commission Chairman Ursula von der Leyen last week mentioned Nord Stream as part of the “new package of sanctions” her team was working on. She first consulted with Merz, according to someone familiar with the discussion.
The committee was scheduled to begin formal discussions with the EU government this weekend, people added. They can only be adopted with unanimous support of all capitals.
Nord Stream, who had a close ties with Putin and was the creator of former prime minister Gerhard Schroeder, who was later hired by Kremlin-backed Gazprom, was once a symbol of the deep economic ties between Russia and Germany.
Even before Moscow launched a full-scale Ukraine invasion in 2022, the link was the bone of a fight between Berlin and Washington, with the first Trump administration urging Chancellor Angela Merkel to reduce its energy dependence on Russia.
Putin’s former spy and best friend, Matthias Warnig, discussed support for US investors over the pipeline reboot, said earlier. Walnig was trying to capitalize on President Donald Trump’s desire for an economic reconciliation with Moscow, they said.
“It is right for the Prime Minister to actively support sanctions against Node Stream 2,” a government spokesman said.
Trump’s efforts to negotiate a settlement with Russia over Ukraine rekindled debates in Germany over Nordstream and Russian gas, which accounted for more than half of Germany’s gas imports before 2022.
A FORSA survey found that 49% of residents of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a German state that supports Lubmin, the end of the pipeline, will resume gas supply in Russia.
Germany’s far-right alternative, which secured more than 20% of the national votes in the February election, calls for the pipeline to be brought back online as the eurozone’s biggest economy tackles high energy prices and stagnation.
This view is shared by some business leaders and politicians in the Social Democrats, a partner in Mertz’s central right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and his Central Left Union. Green’s opposition condemned the remnants of “Moscow ties” within Germany’s mainstream political parties.
In March, CDU Prime Minister of East Germany’s Saxony state, Michael Krescher said maintaining punitive measures against Moscow was “completely old and incompatible with what Americans are doing now.”
In response to reports by FT and others about Nord Stream, CDU MP Thomas Bareiß honours in a LinkedIn post, “How business-oriented our American friends are.”
Dietmar Woidke, East German state’s SPD Prime Minister, Brandenburg, called for the normalization of German trade relations with Russia after the peace agreement.
