German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier said Sunday that the German government had no legal premise to interfere with the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
“Nord Stream 2 is the wrong whipping boy… The construction has gone far, kilometres of pipes have been laid under the [Baltic] sea… The federal government will not intervene in this process because there is no legal basis for this,” he told the Handelsblatt newspaper in an interview out Sunday.
Nord Stream 2 stipulates the construction of two gas pipelines running from the Russian coast north of St. Petersburg through the Baltic Sea to a hub in northeastern Germany. The project is a joint venture between Russia's Gazprom and France's Engie, Austria's OMV AG, UK-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell, as well as Germany's Uniper and Wintershall.
The pipeline, due to be put into operation in 2019, aims to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas a year to the European Union across the Baltic Sea to Germany.
