The sanctions which adopted last Friday the president of the united STATES, Donald Trump, against the companies that are involved in the multi-million dollar gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 —which will connect Russia and Germany through the Baltic sea, will cause a considerable delay in the construction of the canal, which should be operating by 2020, as announced yesterday by the Coordinator of Transatlantic of the German Government, Peter Bayer. The swiss company Allseas announced on Saturday the suspension of work —is a stretch of 160 kilometres— because of the actions of Washington, according to a company statement. “In anticipation of the enactment of the National Defense Authorization, Allseas has suspended its activities in the gas pipeline Nord Stream 2”, the text says.
Together with the Italian Saipem, Allseas was in charge of laying the pipes of the gas pipeline. “There are alternatives, but will delay the completion of the pipeline, and also will lead to higher costs,” said Beyer, who said he hoped that “the pipeline is completed in the second half of next year,” he told the radio Deutschlandrunkfunk.
The announcement of the sanctions threaten to become a heavy burden on German-american relations and some members of the German Government have qualified the extent of Trump as a “hostile act”. In the same line, the German Finance minister and vice-chancellor, Olaf Scholz (SPD) described the measure as a “serious interference” in the internal affairs of Germany and Europe. “We firmly reject this,” said Scholz. However, the Government of Angela Merkel has chosen not to adopt countermeasures against Washington because the sanctions are not aimed directly against Germany.
In fact, the sanctions established in the Law for the Protection of Energy Security of Europe are aimed at investors and companies who are placing the pipes of the gas pipeline in the Baltic sea as the already cited Allseas (Switzerland) and Saipem (Italy).
The pipeline, which has a cost of more than 10,000 million euros, a length of about 1,200 kilometers and a transport capacity of some 50,000 billion cubic metres per year, has been considered by the White House, since Trump took over the power, as a “serious risk” to the security of Europe. And is that Washington is convinced that the Nord Stream 2 will increase the capacity of control of Moscow over the supply of energy to the EU, will reduce the participation of the liquefied gas american market european and will end up turning Germany into “a hostage of Russia”.
