Possible US sanctions against the Russian pipelayer Fortuna, which is involved in the construction of Nord Stream-2, will slow down the project, but US President-elect Joe Biden, who will be inaugurated on January 20, could weaken the sanctions policy in this direction, the assistant professor of the Department of Political Science and sociology of political processes of the sociological faculty of Moscow State University Pavel Kanevsky said in an interview.
On Monday, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported that the US is planning on Tuesday to impose sanctions on the Russian pipelayer Fortuna, which is involved in the construction of Nord Stream-2, and the company KBT-Rus, which owns the ship. According to the newspaper, the US authorities on Monday notified the German government and other European partners of their decision to impose sanctions on the basis of CAATSA (the law “On Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions”). The FRG authorities consider the sanctions illegal.
According to the expert, the new sanctions are “a continuation of the Trump policy”.
“Let me remind you that since January 1, another package of sanctions has been in effect, which has been included in the (US) defense budget. I think that in the short and medium term this can have some impact, because there is a long section to be completed and, as I recall except for Fortuna, only Akademik Chersky can continue laying this pipeline. That is, these sanctions will slow down the laying of the decisive last section”, – Kanevsky told RIA Novosti.
At the same time, in his opinion, there is a possibility of weakening sanctions with the coming to power in the United States of a new president.
“Biden has repeatedly stated that he is not going to quarrel with European partners, but, on the contrary, is going to establish relations with them. He also spoke about sanctions against Nord Stream. It is difficult to say how this will be done in practice, but there are certain signals that under Biden the sanctions policy with respect to at least Nord Stream will be weakened”, – he said.
At the same time, the expert recalled that the relevant laws are passed by the Congress, but “how they are implemented in practice is another matter, because in America there are by-laws that are under the jurisdiction of the president”.
“I think that although numerous laws have been adopted against Nord Stream, there are certain signals that Biden’s coming to power will somehow change this situation, but there are many nuances here”, – Kanevsky explained.
“Biden is unlikely to change the laws, but the style of implementation of these laws may change”, – he added.
Nord Stream-2 envisages the construction of two strings 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. The project is actively opposed by the United States, which is promoting its liquefied natural gas to the EU, as well as Ukraine and a number of European countries. In December 2019, the states imposed sanctions against the gas pipeline, as a result of which the Swiss Allseas was forced to stop laying.
It continued a year later – in December 2020, the Fortuna pipelayer laid 2.6 kilometers of pipes in German waters. As a result, according to Nord Stream 2 AG (operator of the project), approximately 148 kilometers of the gas pipeline remained unfinished out of the total length of its two lines of 2,460 kilometers – 120 kilometers remained in Danish waters and about 28 kilometers in German waters. The Danish authorities have agreed on the possibility of stowage with the help of “Fortuna” from 15 January, the German permit for this vessel is valid until the end of May.