European experts warn Berlin: Nord Stream 2 is strategic mistake

This is stated in the public appeal of the European Values Think-Tank, signed by 50 security experts from 18 European countries.

 “The Russian government’s lobbying strategy is crystal clear – it wants to keep Western money flowing towards the Kremlin elite and increase its leverage against key European decision makers,” reads the appeal.

The experts say that Nord Stream 2 is now supported by both Germany‘s major ruling political parties in the current coalition as well as three parties of the opposition. “While the German political elite seems to be convinced that this is the right decision, there are a least six major reasons why building Nord Stream 2 is a strategic mistake for Berlin and its European allies,” they believe.

The first reason is that building up this extra pipeline will increase German political dependency on Russian energy, giving Moscow greater leverage for strategic blackmail.

The second one is that Nord Stream 2 will bypass Germany’s Central and Eastern European allies and weaken the Alliance. Specialists argue that it could give a tactical advantage to the Russian armed forces. More importantly, it would enable the Russian forces to block NATO forces’ movements by sea in case of armed conflict with Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania. 

The third reason is that Federal Republic of Germany will be de facto co-financing Russia’s war machine and Nord Stream 2 will further weaken the Alliance. “The truth is that Nord Stream 2 is not a regular business project with the Russian Federation, or even with Gazprom: it is a business deal with Vladimir Putin and his cronies. Doing business with the Russian President is in no way a normal business deal,” the European Values Think-Tank claims.

In addition, the experts underscore that Nord Stream 2 will aggravate strategic corruption in Europe and cause substantial environmental damage.

Moreover, Nord Stream 2 contradicts EU Energy Union principles and is clearly redundant.

“The EU energy agenda stresses the importance of diversification and the necessity of unbundling. From a supply perspective, Nord Stream 2 officials claim that as supply in the Netherlands and Norway dwindles, Europe needs additional gas volume. They conveniently forget that Gazprom simply intends to replace one part of the infrastructure (the pipelines going through Ukraine),” the appeal reads.

ol