The European Commission on Thursday said that despite a lack of unity among member states over Russia’s plans for a new gas pipeline to Germany, it would press ahead to seek support for talks with Russia on its objections.
Brussels, backed by some EU member states, is concerned the Nord Stream 2 pipeline across the Baltic Sea will increase the bloc’s reliance on Russian gas and cut gas transit revenues for Ukraine, damaging its fragile economy. So it has sought the backing from the 28-nation bloc to negotiate with Moscow.
But Germany, the EU’s biggest economy and the end-point for the pipeline planned to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of gas a year, believes Brussels should not get involved.
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“I don’t feel we will have unanimity on this issue in the coming months but the Commission still feels it would be useful that it be granted a negotiating mandate,” Juncker told reporters after EU leaders met.
Eastern European and Baltic Sea littoral states fear the project strengthens Russia’s hand, while Germany and other beneficiaries in northern Europe see a commercial pay-off.
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EU diplomats said the leaders of Poland, Lithuania, Denmark and Latvia raised their concerns during a roundtable on security issues.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has said there is no need for a separate mandate for the EU executive, told fellow leaders she understood they had political concern but she asked them not to muddy the legal waters, two diplomats said.
Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern, whose country like Germany has companies invested in the pipeline, said opposition to the gas pipeline should not be founded on a critical stance toward the Kremlin, according to a senior EU diplomat.
Five European companies - German energy groups Uniper and Wintershall, Austria’s OMV, Anglo-Dutch group Shell and France’s Engie - are invested in the 1,225 km (760 mile) pipeline, which will pump Russian gas via the Baltic Sea.
The Commission’s attempts to intervene were dealt a blow earlier this month when the legal service of the Council of the European Union, the body where EU ministers meet, said it failed to establish “any legal need to negotiate”.
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