Groen licht voor aanleg Russische pijpleidingen (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A Gazprom-led European company has received the last environmental permit it needed to construct a gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea, linking Russian gas fields directly to Germany.
Finnish authorities on Friday (12 February) gave the Switzerland-based Nord Stream consortium the last environmental permit it needed in order to start building a 1,223 kilometre-long pipeline through the Baltic Sea.
Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Russia last year also gave the Gazprom-led joint venture similar permits to cross their territorial waters, after agreeing to the environmental planning done by company, which also includes removing some of the Second World War mines still to be found on the seabed.
Construction is scheduled to start in April this year and wrap up mid-2011, with the first gas expected to flow by the end of next year. A second pipeline will be attached in 2012, doubling the capacity to 55 billion cubic metres of gas a year. Apart from Germany, the main customer, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, France and the UK have also signed up to buy gas via this route.
"Our project has been made possible by extensive cooperation between many European countries and it will make an important contribution to European energy security," Nord Stream managing director Matthias Warnig said in a statement.
But other countries in the region are less happy with the project. The Baltic states and Poland have been fiercely opposing the construction of the pipeline, claiming that it could undermine their security of supply. Some 80 percent of Europe's gas imports from Russia currently come through Soviet-era pipelines via Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
If the alternative route via the Baltic Sea is opened directly to wealthier western European states, Russia's incentives to refrain from gas politics with eastern European countries will be diminished, argue the new member states.
"Poland certainly does not understand the Nord Stream project. What is the economic rationale for a decision whose outcome is a much more expensive transit of gas than by the traditional land route? For me, Nord Stream is an example of a lack of energy solidarity," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk i said last month in an interview with Financial Times.
The pipeline is backed by the European Commission as a ‘priority' project aimed at diversifying not only sources of energy but also routes. This alludes to what several Nord Stream supporters claim - that by avoiding Ukraine, EU-Russian relations will run smoothly and gas disruptions like the ones in 2006 and 2009 will no longer happen.
Eastern Europeans, however, say that increasing gas dependence on Russia will hardly spur Moscow to stop playing pipeline politics.
The history of the project also stirred up Cold War sensibilities in the former eastern bloc, as the manner in which the deal was sealed reminded Polish officials of the Nazi-Soviet pact which carved up their country on the eve of the Second World War.
The initial agreement for the pipeline was sealed between the then German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin i, just a few weeks before Mr Schroeder left office. Mr Schroeder was then recruited by Gazprom to the managing board of the Nord Stream company. Appointing Mr Warnig, a former agent of Stasi, the secret police in Communist East Germany, did not come across well either.
South Stream makes progress too
Mr Putin, meanwhile the Prime Minister of Russia, is still actively involved in pipeline diplomacy. Apart from Nord Stream, which is now well under way, the former KGB officer is also pushing for another pipeline, dubbed South Stream, through the Black Sea. This is seen as a rival to Europe's own project aimed at lowering dependence on Russian gas via a direct route from the Caspian region through Turkey and south-eastern Europe.
On Friday, Gazprom and a state-owned Hungarian bank sealed a deal in setting up a company to develop Hungary's part of the project. Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia have also signed up for South Stream, while press reports in Russia suggest Austria is expected to enter the deal soon.
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