Advertisement

Denmark hails new German doubts on Russian gas pipeline

AFP
AFP - [email protected]
Denmark hails new German doubts on Russian gas pipeline
Unused pipeline at Mukran Port in north Germany. Photo: AFP

Denmark is happy to see new doubts in Germany over the near-completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline after the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen said Saturday.

Advertisement

"I think (German doubts) are positive, because I've been against Nord Stream 2 from the start," she said of the project, designed to bring Russian gas directly to Germany.

"I don't think we should make ourselves dependent on Russian gas, so I think it's good if there are new conversations about that," she told Danish news agency Ritzau.

Environmental challenges and American sanctions have already hindered Nord Stream 2, which is led by state-owned Russian gas giant Gazprom.

Germany had long defended the Baltic Sea pipeline -- set to complement the existing Nord Stream 1 link opened in 2012 -- against opposition by fellow EU countries Poland and the Baltic states as well as Ukraine, a major gas transit country.

 

Advertisement

But Chancellor Angela Merkel this week said she would not rule out possible consequences for the pipeline if Moscow's response to the Navalny poisoning fails to satisfy Berlin.

Almost all of the 1,230-kilometre (760 miles) length of Nord Stream 2 has already been built, but construction has been on hold for months as the US threatened sanctions against participating companies.

Denmark last year was the final country to give its green light for the pipeline to pass through its waters -- months before Frederiksen came to power.

Copenhagen has denied any pressure from abroad on its decision, but has long had a delicate balancing act to strike between its two major allies Germany and the US.

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited in July, he publicly hailed Danish energy policy.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

[email protected] 2020/10/03 03:51
Germany claimed that Novichok was found in Navalny's blood, in his urine and on his skin, and in a bottle he had with him when he boarded the plane in Tomsk... Now, if there really had been a poisoning, the only person or people who could have done it are a trusted cohort following the orders of Navalny's western sponsors (Putin-hating Soros and criminal Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky) in view of Navalny's constant and persistent failures over the years at destabilizing Putin and the Kremlin, and who may well have thought that Navalny serves their agenda better if he dies and becomes a "martyr" than if he stays alive and well. That is if indeed there was any Novichock anywhere on Navalny, in Navalny and in that bottle, which I seriously doubt since in view of the treatment he received at the hospital in Omsk, he would have died there had he been poisoned with Novichok. In fact, if he had really been poisoned with Novichok in his hotel room (from the bottle), he would never have made it to the airport in Tomsk alive. Novichok is an extremely fast-acting nerve agent and five times more lethal than VX.<br /><br />Navalny's entourage searched his room and found three bottles of water. Now, how on earth could they have known which one was covered in Novichok? They searched that room barefoot and with simple surgical gloves on - had there been Novichok in that room, they would in those conditions also have been poisoned.<br /> <br />Note that Navalny drank some tea during an unscheduled and unplanned stop at a coffee shop in the airport in Tomsk - there again, only someone in his entourage could have put poison in his tea, if he actually was poisoned.<br /><br />I mean, think about it. First, the Russians poison him with the deadliest chemical weapon in the world, then they do their best to save his life and finally send him to Germany so that the Germans could establish that he was poisoned with the deadliest chemical weapon in the world. No one else was affected, including his assistants and entourage, and there were no protective suits around, not anyone on the plane, not a single member of the crew who attended him on that plane, not even on the Russian doctors who treated him. The whole thing beggars belief!<br /><br />
[email protected] 2020/10/03 03:48
Are the Danish people really prepared to pay twice as much for liquid natural gas imported from the USA than for the Russian natural gas they have been enjoying so far?

See Also