Biden Says No Nord Stream 2 if Russia Invades Ukraine

If Russia invades Ukraine, there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2.

That’s according to U.S. President Joe Biden, who made the country’s position clear in a press conference at the White House including Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing … the border of Ukraine again … there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” Biden said in the press conference.

“We will bring an end to it,” he added.

When asked how Biden would do this, since the project is within Germany’s control, Biden simply stated, “I promise you, we’ll be able to do it”.

In the same press conference, Sholz stated, “we are acting together, we are absolutely united, and we will not be taking different steps”. 

“We will do the same steps, and they will be very, very hard to Russia, and they should understand,” Sholz added in the statement.

Nord Stream 2 is a Baltic Sea pipeline that will deliver gas from the world’s largest gas reserves in Russia to meet the growing demands of consumers in Europe, according to the project’s website.

Last month, Nord Stream 2’s website announced that a subsidiary for the German part of the pipeline had been established. The new company will become the owner and operator of the 33.5-mile section of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline located in the German territorial waters and the landfall facility in Lubmin, as an independent transmission operator in accordance with the German Energy Industry Act (EnWG), Nord Stream 2’s site noted.

In November 2021, the German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) announced that it had suspended the procedure to certify Nord Stream 2 AG as an independent transmission operator. The Bundesnetzagentur stated at the time that it would only be possible to certify an operator of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if that operator was organized in a legal form under German law.

Nord Stream 2 passes through the waters of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Pipeline construction began in 2018 and was complete in Russian, Finnish and Swedish waters by the end of 2019, according to the project’s website, which noted that pipelay was suspended in December 2019 due to the threat of U.S. sanctions that targeted the project’s contractors and financial investors.

The site outlined, however, that the European Commission described these sanctions as a breach of international law and revealed that Nord Stream 2 created “solutions” to ensure that pipelay eventually continued. In early September 2021, the last pipes were said to have been welded into the pipeline string and lowered onto the Baltic seabed in German waters.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com