by N. Peter Kramer
US President Joe Biden has removed the consortium building Nord Stream 2 from the US sanctions list. The company’s CEO, former Stasi agent Matthias Warnig, is also no longer on the list. Nothing now seems to stand in the way of the completion of the pipeline between Russia and Germany. Of the 1.230 kilometres, just under ten kilometres have yet to be covered. The intention is that they will be completed this year. Nord Stream 2 will then double the capacity of Nord Stream 1.
It was former President Donald Trump, who banned Nord Stream 2, not to punish Putin but to ensure the US could deliver its shale gas to Germany. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Social Democratic coalition partner have always defended the construction of the pipeline, considering it an important economic project to help Germany close the lignite mines.
Why did the Biden administration make the move? The President has always said he opposes Nord Stream 2. His Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said a few months ago during his confirmation hearing in the US Senate that he was ‘determined to do whatever we can to prevent that completion’ of the pipeline.
But now, the US State Department concludes in its report that it is in the US national interest to waive the sanctions. It is clear that Biden put his relations with Germany above all other considerations. He expects that ‘Berlin’, followed by other mayor EU member states, will align with the tough US policy versus China.
German officials welcomed the sanction waiver as ‘a constructive step’ from the Biden administration. ‘It’s an expression of the fact that Germany is an important partner for the US, one that it can count on in the future’, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) told reporters.
There are more pipelines running from Russia to Europe. One of them passes through the Ukraine. Could the capacity of Nord Stream 2 be big enough to be a substitute for the Ukrainian pipeline? Experts seriously doubt it. But Ukrainian President Zelenski called the suspension of sanctions an ‘important geostrategic victory’ for Putin.
Last Wednesday, the US top diplomat met his Russian counterpart at an international summit in Iceland. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia and the US had ‘serious differences’ but should work together ‘in spheres where our interests collide’. Blinken answered that President Biden wanted ‘a predictable, stable relationship with Russia’.
It looks like Blinken and Lavrov are rolling out the red carpet for the Biden – Putin summit; sometime, somewhere, in Europe.
