We consider the decision of the German authorities to terminate the certification process of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline unacceptable and unworthy from the point of view of the norms of international commercial law. We believe that we are dealing with a classic precedent of using a commercial project as a political weapon against us, which the collective West in general and official Berlin in particular are so fond of accusing Moscow of. The mentioned instruction to the German regulator was given through the relevant Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection of the Federal Republic of Germany, which recently talked about the project as a purely economic initiative of private investors. And the German Chancellor O. Scholz himself, on whose direct instructions the above-mentioned actions were taken, confidently assured earlier that the certification process of SP-2 is exclusively normative in nature and cannot be connected in any way with the political conjuncture.
As it now becomes obvious, the German authorities were inconsistent and, being under pressure, succumbed to the temptation to use the project as a lever of pressure on Russia, thereby demonstrating the inability to separate politics and economics. In reality, the implementation of the project was hindered by the extension of the updated EU gas directive to it after the fact, or by the suspension of certification. So introduced on February 22 this year. a direct ban on the certification of Nord Stream-2 for political reasons is the logical culmination of the mentioned doctrine of the priority of politics over the economy in the context of its implementation. At the same time, Berlin cynically took advantage of an unworthy trick in the form of a recall – again after the fact – of the conclusion of the said ministry on the absence of threats to the energy security of Germany in connection with the construction of the gas pipeline, issued in October 2021 under the former German government.
This makes it impossible to certify it and, accordingly, to put it into operation.
In this regard, we would like to state that Berlin’s decision to stop the project will result in irreversible damage to Russian-German relations, which have been far from cloudless in recent years through no fault of our own. The responsibility for the consequences of these illegitimate actions, which call into question the reputation of Germany as a reliable foreign economic partner, lies entirely on the German side. In this regard, the investors of the project have an inalienable right to file lawsuits against official Berlin in international arbitration instances for compensation.
Against this background, our position regarding energy cooperation with Germany and with Europe in general remains unchanged. Russia has constantly stressed that SP-2 is a purely economic, commercial project, which was implemented in strict accordance with the norms of international law, the regulations of the European Union, the legislation of the relevant coastal states. The timely commissioning of this gas pipeline would meet the interests of both Russia and Europe. In addition to mutual benefits, the new route is designed to promote the diversification of gas supply and become a stabilizing element for the gas market in Europe. Apparently, this will not happen in the foreseeable future, since the project has become hostage to artificial linking with other political plots. The inevitable consequence of abandoning SP-2 will be, as we have already seen, a rapid increase in gas prices on the European market.
