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Joe Biden and Angela Merkel
Photo: Maurizio Gambarini / dpa
After years of hard struggle and harsh punitive measures, the US has now officially given up its resistance to the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline. In return for Washington waiving further sanctions against the project, Germany has agreed to take a number of measures designed to mitigate the consequences for Ukraine and prevent Russia from using its gas supplies as a weapon against the country. This finally clears the way for one of the most controversial energy projects in European history. The 1,200-kilometer Baltic Sea pipeline is slated to begin exporting Russian gas to Europe this year, bypassing Poland and Ukraine. For Chancellor Angela Merkel, who held on to the project against bitter resistance,the agreement on the last few meters of your chancellorship is a triumph.
And it shows how important Germany is to the Biden government as a close partner.
Because the US administration has done the German side far with their waiver of sanctions against the pipeline.
In return, the federal government has promised Ukraine financial support for the transformation of its energy sector, but all measures aimed at Russia are rather vague and are essentially limited to expressions of intent.
So there will be no automatism for sanctions against Moscow in case of Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Sanctions threats against Moscow
The essence of the declaration is the question of how to prevent Moscow from misusing its pipelines as instruments of political blackmail against Ukraine. In this case, Germany will advocate sanctions against Russia at the European level - either in the energy sector or in another relevant economic area and, as the declaration says, "act at the national level". The German government sees this as a continuation of its previous Russia policy of responding to aggressions such as the annexation of Crimea or the destabilization of Donbass with sanctions. What is new, however, is that the declaration explicitly threatens Russia with sanctions in the energy sector.
In addition, the German government has pledged to work to extend the transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine beyond 2024. The export of Russian gas through its territory is important for Ukraine because the transit fees represent an important part of the state budget. The federal government had already played a mediating role in the last extension in 2019. Now she wants to appoint a special envoy to start talks with both sides before September 1. The extension should be up to ten years. However, if Moscow refuses to extend it, the declaration does not provide for any punitive measures. The German government assumes, however, that it is in Russia's interest to continue to export gas to Europe via Ukraine in the future.
Biden's people came up to the Germans
The joint declaration also makes it clear that Berlin and Washington want to coordinate their policy towards Russia and Ukraine more closely in the future.
Kiev is expected to receive significant support in modernizing and converting its energy sector to renewable energy.
For this purpose, Germany will contribute 150 million euros to a "green fund", which, however, should reach a total volume of up to one billion euros through leverage.
The talks between Berlin and Washington to settle the dispute over Nord Stream 2 came about at the initiative of the Biden administration. Biden's people approached the German side on the sidelines of the NATO foreign ministers' meeting in March. The basis for the talks was that Biden initially suspended further sanctions against the pipeline consortium in May. The negotiations then began when Merkel's security advisor Jan Hecker visited his counterpart Jake Sullivan in Washington in June. In the weeks that followed, there were a number of other phone calls and video conferences. On the sidelines of Merkel's visit to Washington in mid-July, the last points of contention were resolved before the statement was made on Tuesday. Unlike his predecessor Christoph Heusgen, Hecker was a supporter of Nord Stream 2.
For years Putin Merkel was with his tube in the ears
Chancellor Merkel had supported the project for years, despite stubborn resistance, even if she occasionally mocked the Russian President Vladimir Putin's tube in her ears: "moja Truba - my tube", she copied. Resistance to the pipeline, which is now 98 percent complete, was great. The USA had geostrategic and economic objections, they want to sell their liquefied gas in Europe, Ukraine fears losing an important lever against Russian aggression, and many EU countries are also against the project. In Germany, criticism came from the Greens for reasons of foreign and environmental policy, but also from Merkel's own party, where foreign policy-makers like Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, opposed Nord Stream.
For a long time, Merkel described Nord Stream 2 as a purely economic project, only admitting in 2018 that the pipeline also has a political dimension.
In fact, it is precisely this dimension that is important to her.
Merkel is convinced that it is in Germany and Europe's interest to maintain economic ties with Russia despite all the difficulties.
In the view of the Federal Government, gas exports create mutual dependency, which tends to stabilize relations between Russia and Europe.
The EU is also convinced that it can always switch to LNG if Moscow actually uses its gas in an extortionate way.
A question of national sovereignty
Merkel also saw herself supported by the coalition partner SPD and by public opinion in Germany: three out of four German citizens last spoke out in a survey in May for the completion of Nord Stream 2. Under Donald Trump's presidency, the pipeline for Berlin had increasingly become a question of national sovereignty. After Trump's ambassador Richard Grenell publicly reprimanded the Germans and threatened German companies with punitive measures, the attitude of the federal government hardened. One did not want to bow to the illegal sanctions imposed by Donald Trump.
The new US President Biden found himself in a difficult position when he took office. He could hardly prevent the completion of the pipeline, if so only at the cost of an economic war against the most important partner in the EU. In the end it wasn't worth it to him. Last but not least, Washington should be interested in closing the ranks of the West against its rival China. They didn't want to risk that for an almost completed gas pipeline. In the federal government, however, it is asserted that there are neither pronounced nor unspoken side deals to the agreement, i.e. no German consideration in another area.
However, there would have been a way out for Biden: He could have played for time, waited for the federal elections and hoped that the next German government would be led by the Greens: They have long been declared opponents of the project.
