The struggle over Russia's 'energy weapon' beneath the Baltic

The Nord Stream gas pipeline venture is one of the most controversial business deals involving German and Russian companies, and has become a focal point for suspicion of commercial and political relations between the two states.
In 2006 Radoslaw Sikorski, Polish foreign minister (then defence minister) described the proposed 750 mile link under the Baltic sea as “in the tradition of the Molotov- Ribbentrop pact”, the treaty through which Nazi Germany and the Soviet U-nion plotted to carve up Europe. Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, and its partners – BASF/Wintershall and Eon Ruhrgas of Germany, and Dutch company Gasunie – dismiss such conspiracy theories. For them, the construction of twin pipelines that will transport 55bn cu m of gas per year to the European U-nion is a commercial project.

But the consortium has struggled to allay fears that the project – at a cost of €7.4bn, up to three times more expensive than building a land-based pipeline – is about more than just gas. Its circumvention of Ukraine and other transit states leads critics to accuse Russia of pursuing a divide-and-conquer strategy to boost its influence over its eastern European neighbours while easing the supply concerns of the west. The US ambassador to Sweden last year denounced Nord Stream as a “special arrangement between Germany and Russia” and called on the EU to counteract “Russia’s energy weapon”.

Financial Times