Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

GAS

Germany soothes Polish gas pipeline fears

German vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel on Friday sought to allay Poland's concerns over plans to build a second pipeline to pump Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

Published: 30 January 2016 13:56 CET
Germany soothes Polish gas pipeline fears
Nord Stream One at the point where it lands in Germany. Photo: Nord Stream
“We're taking Poland's concerns very seriously,” said Gabriel, who is also Germany's economy minister, after meeting his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki in Warsaw.
 
“We've told the Russian side that we won't carry out the project without guarantees … that gas supplies are secured to eastern Europe,” he said.
   
Poland has claimed the Nordstream 2 pipeline undermines the European Union's strategic interests and violates competition rules, adding that revenue from the project could end up in Russian state coffers and be spent on
arms.
   
“We're a little worried about Polish security, not just in terms of geopolitics but also gas,” Morawiecki told reporters on Friday.
   
No timeframe has been given for the deal that will boost Germany as a distribution hub for Russian gas in western Europe and which has also been criticised by other EU members including Italy.
   
“For Germany, this project remains purely a matter of economics,” Gabriel said. “We're in favour of diversifying gas supply sources and it is up to the German market and firms to decide where the gas comes from.”
   
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has said the Nordstream pipeline risks concentrating 80 percent of the bloc's Russian gas imports on one route and will now look into whether the project meets European laws.
   
Russian energy giant Gazprom announced in early September a shareholders agreement with the German groups BASF and E.ON, France's Engie, Austrian OMV and Anglo-Dutch Shell to begin work on Nordstream 2.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

NORD STREAM

Nord Stream: Investigators link Ukrainian-owned yacht to sabotage, reports claim

German investigators have identified the boat they believe was used in the sabotage attack on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, according to a report in the Die Zeit newspaper, based on a joint investigation with the broadcasters ARD and SWR. 

Published: 8 March 2023 08:33 CET
Nord Stream: Investigators link Ukrainian-owned yacht to sabotage, reports claim

According to the report, a group of five men and one woman rented the yacht from a Polish-based company with Ukrainian owners. The group all used false passports and their true nationalities are unknown.

Traces of explosives have been found on the yacht, which set sail from the German city of Rostock on September 6th, 20 days before the explosions, which destroyed the two pipelines at a point off the coast of Sweden and just south of the Danish island of Bornholm. 

“The traces lead in the direction of Ukraine,” Die Zeit wrote in its article. “However, investigators have not yet found any evidence as to who ordered the destruction.” 

The newspaper said that, “according to its information”, a western intelligence service had already tipped off its European partners in the autumn that a Ukrainian commando unit had been responsible for the attack, after which there had been “further intelligence indications that a pro-Ukrainian group” was behind the attack. 

In a separate report, the New York Times newspaper reported that US officials had seen new intelligence indicating a “pro-Ukrainian group” was responsible for the sabotage.

The Times report said US officials had no evidence implicating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the pipeline bombing, and it did not identify the source of the intelligence or the group involved.

The attack, the newspaper said, benefitted Ukraine by severely damaging Russia’s ability to reap millions of dollars by selling natural gas to Western Europe. The intelligence suggested that the perpetrators behind the sabotage were “opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia”, the Times report said.

When confronted with the reports, Ukraine denied any involvement.

The country’s presidential adviser Mychajlo Podoljak told ARD that Ukraine “of course had nothing to do with the attacks on Nord Stream-2”. There was, he said, “no confirmation that Ukrainian officials or the military took part in this operation or that people were dispatched to act on their behalf.”

It was still conceivable that Russia was behind it, he said. “There are many more motives and many more uses in this scenario.” 

He later tweeted that Ukraine “has nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap”. 

Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Russian president Vladimir Putin, claimed the reports had been fabricated by the true “authors of the attack” as a diversion. 

“How can American officials assume anything without an investigation?” he told the Ria news agency, complaining that Russia was not part of the investigation of this “monstrous crime”.

The Russian embassy in the US blamed the reports on US intelligence services, which it accused of “an attempt to confuse anyone who sincerely wishes to seek out the truth in this flagrant crime”

SHOW COMMENTS