Resuming energy flows from Russia will help stave off deindustrialization, Steffen Kotre says
Piping systems and shut-off valves at the gas receiving station of the Nord Stream pipeline, November 5, 2020, Lubmin, Germany. © Getty Images / picture alliance
Germany needs to bring the surviving branch of the Nord Stream pipeline online and resume gas imports from Russia, Bundestag MP Steffen Kotre told TASS news agency on Saturday. According to the lawmaker, abandoning Russian energy and replacing it with alternate gas supplies has been a mistake.
“What the Chancellor [Olaf Scholz] is happy about is devastating for companies and private consumers,” Kotre, who is also a member of the German parliamentary committee on energy and climate protection, said, referring to Scholz’s earlier praise of Germany’s efforts to reduce dependence on Russian energy.
“The surge in gas prices leads to the deindustrialization of Germany. To ensure competitiveness, Germany should agree to purchase gas through the surviving branch of the Nord Stream pipeline,” Kotre stated.
Nord Stream is a gas route between Russia and Germany that runs through the Baltic Sea. It consists of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, each comprised of two separate branches. Germany once received Russian gas through Nord Stream 1, while Nord Stream 2 was never certified due to bureaucratic setbacks.
Both pipelines were damaged and shut down last year, in an incident widely considered to be sabotage. As a result, Germany lost direct access to Russian gas, which once covered around half of the country’s energy needs. One of the two branches of Nord Stream 2 survived, but the German authorities have not resumed the certification process due to political tensions with Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.
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According to Kotre, this needs to change, as Germany currently pays much more for gas from alternate sources than it used to pay for Russian gas.
“Russian gas is profitable and environmentally friendly, which is not the case with our current supplies – primarily liquefied natural gas from the US. Germany pays three to four times more for these supplies, but gas from the US produced by the fracking method does not meet our environmental standards,” he stated.
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