$11B Gazprom Pipeline Project Faces Nearly $8B Fine

For Germany, cancellation would mean unwinding years of government strategy to build a lucrative gas trading hub. It would also unravel the plans of corporate giants like BASF SE, for which supplies from the link are crucial.

Polish government officials discussed the pipeline when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Warsaw in August. They object to deepening trade links with Russia while Vladimir Putin pursues policies that unsettle the region, ranging from seizing Crimea to meddling in elections.

“Poland is expanding its anti-Russian policy and trying to show the rest of the EU that Berlin can’t boss it around,” said Andrey Klimov, deputy chairman of the International Affairs Committee in the upper house of Russia’s parliament.

--With assistance from Marek Strzelecki, Dina Khrennikova, Piotr Bujnicki, Aoife White, Andrea Dudik and Brian Parkin.

© 2020 Bloomberg L.P.