jjoffe5_Stefan Sauerpicture alliance via Getty Images_nord stream 2

La lógica alemana del gasoducto vacío

Feb 19, 2021 Josef Joffe

HAMBURGO – La construcción del Nord Stream 2 —un gasoducto ya casi terminado que va directamente desde Rusia hasta Alemania— no se debió en realidad a la necesidad de garantizar la provisión de gas natural barato, sino al beneficio personal y los intereses nacionales de ambos países.

El gasoducto a través del mar Báltico enfrentó a Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea contra Alemania, y produjo un creciente coro de críticas locales contra la canciller Angela Merkel. Si la cuestión se redujera solo a moléculas de gas, tal vez el proyecto nunca hubiera empezado... pero entonces, ¿por qué lo hizo?

Volvamos a 2005, cuando Gerhard Schröder y el presidente ruso Vladímir Putin cerraron el acuerdo justo antes de que Schröder dejara el puesto de canciller. Poco después de que cediera el poder a Merkel, el gigante energético ruso Gazprom, básicamente una empresa afiliada al Kremlin, nombró a Schröder presidente del Comité de accionistas de Nord Stream AG. En 2016, Schröder ascendió a la dirección de Nord Stream 2, cuyo único accionista es Gazprom.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 8 Comments on this article

Antoine Dreamer Feb 25, 2021

Russia sells gas to Germany.
While most electricity in Germany is made from coal, any switch to gas is an improvement for global warming, there is plenty of opportunity if the pipe capacity increases.
Gas price is cheap? Well, this is another incentive to increase consumption to generate electricity
Ukraine gets 3 billion $ a year because of gas crossing its country? Any diversion to the Nord stream is a cash saving to share between Russia, Germany and the pipe owners.
Of course, political pressure also is driven by US wishing Germany to buy expensive US gas made with destroying the environment (shale gas)
If the author is right about there being no growth in Germany gas consumption, then it would only be a project to decrease the cost of going through Ukraine. If consumption increases,then the pipe was needed.
The best for the whole (integrated) world is probably to stop producing shale gas in the US from an integrated viewpoint especially if the author is right that there is no need for more gas. This article looks like either a lobby or a political article (nothing wrong with this provided it is acknowledged and not pretending it is based on economics,etc...).
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Wim Roffel Feb 25, 2021

Why are Mr. Joffe and his neocon friends so bent on obstructing Southstream II? And why are they using obvious lies to achieve their goals?
- It is not true that it will make Europe more dependent on Russia. It will give Europe more options and that is a good thing.
- If there are enough pipes - as Joffe claims - why is it a problem to have one more?
- Lavrov did not threaten to rupture relations. He just said that if Europe is bent on rupturing relations Russia will bear it. It won't allow itself to be blackmailed.
- The problem with Poland and Ukraine is not that they once were part of Russia or that Russia wants to deny them transit fees. It is that they have shown themselves unreliable in the past as transit countries.

So please, Mr. Joffe, tell us your real motives! This article doesn't.
- Alexandros Aslanidis Feb 27, 2021
  
  Well said.
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Paul Martin Feb 22, 2021

Well, if this is correct and if the rationale for Merkel's decision on the pipeline is the old diplomatic wisdom of Bismarck, I guess that she is doing what is right on this issue.
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Bernhard Kopp Feb 20, 2021

On the gas-business most everything is said. Europe needs suppliers and Russia needs customers at world market prices. Western Europe has no interest and no obligation to feed the highly corrupt Ukrainian gas complex. The NS-2 pipeline is a fully permitted project and destroying it politically before completion would trigger substantial claims for damages not only from Gazprom, but also from the whole range of European business interest in the project. Nobody in Poland, Ukraine or the USA said that they would pay for the enforceable damage claims. Politically, Mr. Joffe is quite correct to say that Russia has never fully accepted that its historic south-west borderland became an independent state. One can learn in Kiev that Kiev is the " mother of all Russian cities " - we all know the history since Vladimir I. Regarding Poland, I believe that Mr. Joffe is dead wrong. Russians know only too well that Poland is a roman-catholic, western state. They also know that the Baltic states where ethnically-culturally never Russian. The Russian state is as it is, whether we like it or not. If, when and how they become less authoritarian, and even a politically and legally more civilized, law-based democracy is for the Russians to decide. But, Russia is not a threat to Europe, Russia is not an enemy, and it is in our interest to develop a peaceful coexistence with prosperous economic ties and cultural exchanges - with the Russia as it is. If we look at the relations, and what went wrong, we do need to have a 30-years perspective. Last but not least, we do have an interest in keeping Russia to Vladivostok as a European sphere of interest and not permit the Chinese to expand into Far-East Russia even more that is already the case. It is all a matter of balance.
- Mihael Podvinec Feb 21, 2021
  
  I have rarely red such a well-balanced, knowledgeable reply to this article, written straight from some kind of Great Chessboard. Especially, the part concerning China contains the essence of Europe's interest in longterm policy.
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Gunnar Eriksson Feb 20, 2021

The new pipeline create more energy security for Europe. Gas can be supplied also to Ukraine if needed. Putin will be more dependent on Europe. The need for Europe is to reduce the large dependence on the US and its right wing hatred for the EU.
If this right wing had succeeded in starting the war in the Middle East as they worked so hard to start; Europe had lost an important energy supplier and ended up with 5 million Palestinian refugees. (It appear that the clumsy attack on the Saudi refinery saved us all)
Biden may give us some breathing space, but Murdoch is still running the show and he will find more effective tools than those now discarded.
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La lógica alemana del gasoducto vacío

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