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TEHRAN, August 6 -For decades, the Friendship pipeline has delivered oil from Russia to Europe, heating German homes even in the darkest days of the Cold War.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -For decades, the Friendship pipeline has delivered oil from Russia to Europe, heating German homes even in the darkest days of the Cold War.
But a new pipeline that will carry gas direct from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany is doing rather less for friendship, driving a wedge between Germany and its allies and giving Chancellor Angela Merkel a headache.
For U.S. President Donald Trump, Nord Stream 2 is a “horrific” pipeline that will increase Germany’s dependence on Russian energy. Ukraine, fighting Russian-backed separatists, fears the new pipeline will allow Moscow to cut it out of the lucrative and strategically crucial gas transit business.
It comes at an awkward time for Merkel. With the fraying of the transatlantic alliance and an assertive Russia and China, she has acknowledged that Germany must take more of a political leadership role in Europe.
“The global order is under pressure,” Merkel said last month. “That’s a challenge for us ... Germany’s responsibility is growing; Germany has more work to do.”
In April she accepted for the first time that there were “political considerations” to Nord Stream 2, a project she had until then described as a commercial venture.
Most European countries want Germany to do more to project European influence and protect eastern neighbors that are nervous of Russian encroachment.
Source: Reuters
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