Kiev’s position on Nord Stream-2 calls into question the EU assistance, Ukraine’s support for the US’s position on the gas pipeline is unacceptable, Klaus Ernst, Head of the Bundestag committee on economics and energy, said in an interview.
“A country that has received and is receiving great political and financial support from the EU, but at the same time advocating extraterritorial sanctions by the United States, which torpedo our energy policy, calls into question this assistance”, – he said.
Ernst also did not rule out that Germany would take countermeasures in the event that the United States imposes sanctions against Nord Stream-2. According to him, we can talk about increasing duties on American LNG.
Earlier in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, RIA Novosti reported that Kiev expects to use possible US sanctions against Nord Stream-2 as an instrument in negotiations with Russia on gas transit.
The US Congress plans to halt the implementation of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline project through the National Defense Act for 2020. At the same time, there is no final agreement between the House of Representatives and the US Senate on this issue.
The Nord Stream-2 project involves the construction of two pipelines of a gas pipeline with a total capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the Russian coast through the Baltic Sea to Germany. It is planned to be completed in 2019. The pipeline will pass through territorial waters or the exclusive economic zones of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.
The project is actively opposed by Ukraine, which is afraid of losing revenue from the transit of Russian gas, and a number of European countries, including Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as the United States, promoting their liquefied natural gas in the EU.
The Russian side has repeatedly stated that the Nord Stream-2 project is absolutely commercial and competitive, and pointed out that it does not imply a stop to the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to the European Union.