Nord Stream 2 is a failure for EU energy policy – opinion

The new rules for natural gas pipelines to and from third countries agreed by EU institutions mark the failure to find “a robust and coherent” joint European energy policy, as they are unlikely to stop the contentious Russian-German project Nord Stream 2, writes the Financial Times in an editorial. “It is unfortunate that the EU has not been able to act in a more united and muscular way. Ukraine, as well as Poland and some other smaller and eastern EU countries, will be justified in feeling their interests have been sacrificed to those of Paris and Berlin,” writes the FT. Regarding US criticism of the project, the FT writes: “There are justifiable suspicions, too, that US complaints over Nord Stream are motivated more by ambitions to sell tankerfuls of liquefied natural gas to Europe than by concerns about the continent’s energy security.”

Germany has come under increasing criticism from other European countries and the US government for greenlighting Nord Stream 2. Proponents of the project argue the pipeline is a commercial investment and key to Europe's supply security, while critics object to Nord Stream 2 on environmental, geopolitical and security grounds. The European Union this week reached a provisional agreement to toughen up regulation of the Russian-German natural gas pipeline, but not endanger the project as a whole. In an attempt to smooth tensions over the pipeline, the German government invited US officials and industry representatives for an LNG investor conference in Berlin, and said it would build its own import terminals to provide the infrastructure US companies need to sell LNG to Germany.