The Polish and Ukrainian governments have issued a joint statement criticising yesterday’s agreement between Washington and Berlin that gives the go-ahead for completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bringing Russian gas to Germany.
The “security, credibility and political crisis in Europe” has been “significantly deepened by the resignation from attempts to stop the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline”, wrote Poland and Ukraine’s foreign ministers, Zbigniew Rau and Dmytro Kuleba.
The two countries have long expressed opposition to Nord Stream. They argue that it gives Russia greater leverage against Europe, and can in particular be used to the detriment of eastern European countries bypassed by the gas corridor, which runs under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany.
The pipeline is a “political, military and energy threat for Ukraine and Central Europe” that increases Russia’s “potential to destabilise the security situation in Europe”, said Rau and Kuleba. The project is also “perpetuating divisions among NATO and European Union member states”.
Despite such objections, on Wednesday the US and Germany reached a deal over the pipeline. While Washington made clear that it sees Nord Stream 2 as a “bad pipeline”, in the words of Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, it gave the go-ahead for it to be completed.
In return, Berlin committed to “taking action at the national level and pressing for effective measures at the European level” against Russia if it “attempted to use energy as a weapon or commit further aggressive acts against Ukraine”, said a senior State Department official quoted by CNBC.
The deal also includes $50 million in green energy technology credits for Ukraine and guarantees of repayment for gas transit fees that Kyiv loses out on as a result of the new pipeline until 2024, reports the Associated Press.
Incredible! Biden has delivered the greatest victory to Putin:
"Putin, Merkel express satisfaction with prompt completion of Nord Stream 2 construction"
What a disappointment! Biden has divided the West to the benefit of Putin & Schröder. Why?!https://t.co/yDTe0rdE59— Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) July 21, 2021
However, Rau and Kuleba said that such arrangements were “not sufficient to effectively limit the threats created by Nord Stream 2”. They called on the US and Germany to “adequately address the security crisis in our region” by accounting for “negative consequences in three areas: political, military and energy”.
Poland and Ukraine have also called for the “democratic dimension” to be accounted for in future, meaning that “countries most affected by the negative effects of Nord Stream 2” should be consulted ahead of signing such agreements.
In May, Rau criticised the Biden administration for not consulting its decision to waive sanctions on the company behind the pipeline, warning the US that it was falling into the same “Russian trap” as Germany.
Ukraine, which has been fighting Russian-backed separatists since 2014, says that the $11 billion project threatens its security. It will also forgo an annual income of $3 billion from gas transit fees.
Last year, Gazprom launched legal action against Poland’s anti-trust regulator, UOKiK, after it imposed a fine on the Russian gas giant for its refusal to cooperate in an investigation into the Nord Stream 2 project.
Earlier this month, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in Poland’s favour against Germany, upholding an earlier decision to restrict the access of Russia’s state-owned Gazprom to the Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbindungsleitung (OPAL) pipeline that connects to Nord Stream.
Main image credit: Jürgen Mangelsdorf/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
