Polish President Claims Nord Stream-2 Construction Must Be Stopped

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Polish President Andrzej Duda said Wednesday that he believed that the construction of the Russia-initiated Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline should be stopped.

"We must do everything to stop the additional branches of the pipeline from being built," Duda said in an interview with the Hungarian MTI news agency.

According to the president, Russia’s Nord Stream-2 pipeline, which is intended to connect Russia and Germany through the construction of two new pipeline branches, is of great political significance.

Last week, after a meeting of Andrzej Duda and his Slovakian counterpart Andrej Kiska, the politicians expressed their opposition to the Nord Stream-2 pipeline expansion project. Duda proposed raising this issue with the Visegrad countries, comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

In June, Gazprom announced plans to build two additional branches of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in a joint project with E.ON, Shell and OMV. In early September, Russia's Gazprom energy company signed a shareholder agreement on the pipeline extension with the international energy companies BASF, E.ON, Engie, OMV and Shell.

Gazprom is the main shareholder in the project, with a 51 percent stake.

The capacity of the Nord Stream-2 pipeline could reach up to 55 billion cubic meters of direct annual gas supplies from Russia through the Baltic Sea to European customers.

According to Russia's envoy to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, the Nord Strem-2 is not a political project, but it is supposed to ensure stable gas supplies to Europe.