It’s a bit rich for Italy, of all nations, to complain that another European Union member state is prioritizing its own energy security over the bloc’s efforts to diversify away from Russia.
But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Nord Stream 2
Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, is holding up a continuation of the bloc’s sanctions against Russia to make clear his irritation with Germany’s participation in a second Baltic Sea gas pipeline, called Nord Stream 2.
Central and Eastern European countries earlier wrote the European Commission to point out that the planned pipeline bypasses Ukraine and hence building it would play right into Russia’s hands.
“Preserving the transport route through Ukraine is the strategic interest of the EU as a whole,” they argued, “not only from an energy security perspective, but also reinforcing the stability of the Eastern European region.”
Political pipeline
Nord Stream 2, which seeks to double the capacity of the existing Nord Stream pipeline, makes little economic sense. Russia is believed to use just 60 percent of its existing pipeline capacity. The only reason for adding another connection is that it wants reduce its dependence on Ukraine, a former Soviet satellite state that transits half of Russia’s gas exports to Europe and has tilted to the West in recent years.
The EU sanctions on Russia were imposed after it seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and stirred up an insurrection in the country’s eastern borderlands, aggressions that followed Ukraine’s refusal to join a Russian-led customs union and signing of an association pact with the EU instead.
This summer, Anglo-Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV and Germany’s E.ON nevertheless agreed with the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom to extend the Nord Stream pipeline.
The German government, which says it wants to keep the embargo in place, argues that it cannot stop private companies.
But such concerns did not stop Europe from forcing Russia to abandon another non-Ukrainian pipeline last year. Russia canceled South Stream in December citing European opposition to the $40 billion project.
Hypocrisy all round
Italy’s Eni was a major investor in South Stream and Italy is Russia’s second largest trading partner in the EU, after Germany. So it is no surprise that the country didn’t make an issue out of Nord Stream 2 until now when it had its own ties with Russia to consider.
Hypocritical though it may be, Renzi does have a point. As this website has argued, building Nord Stream 2 would contradict Europe’s stated aims of seeking alternative natural gas suppliers to Russia and stopping the country’s bullying of Ukraine. There is no justification for it.
First of all, Russia isn’t bullying Ukraine. It doesn’t need to because Ukraine is doing such a good job of wrecking itself. Secondly, if you were Russia, would you send your gas through a war zone in a country that doesn’t pay its bills? Thirdly, Russia already has Nord Stream One to Germany, and Nord Stream Two would only be about doubling the capacity on the same already-established route. Fourthly, Germany is reliant on Russian gas so why would it jeopardize its energy imports by continuing to rely on gas coming across Ukraine?
In contrast to what you say, Germany has every reason to secure gas directly from Russia without mucking about with a disaster of a non-country like Ukraine. Also, regardless of what you say, German industries are pressuring for an end to sanctions on Russia. It would be better for the EU to impose sanctions on the US for all of the criminal interference and wars in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The US should get over to its own side of the Atlantic and stay there! How we Europeans would love that!
One thing US Americans forget is that 77% of the Russian population lives in Europe; that is, the part of Russia west of the Urals that is in Europe. Russia covers about 39% of Europe. Russians ARE mostly European. I’d rather have Russia than the USA, that’s for sure. Europe had been trading peacefully with Russia before the US supported the coup in Kiev – to the tune of $5 billion, according to Obama. We’d still be doing so now, and with no one killed in the Ukraine conflict had it not been for US warmongering.