Complaint rejected: The EU applies to Nord Stream 2

According to the OLG, the controversial Baltic Sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 must adhere to the EU gas market regulation.

The Federal Network Agency wants to regulate the gas pipeline in the area of ​​German territory.

The authority could have waived this under certain conditions, for example if the tube had been completed on May 23, 2019.

Among other things, the EU rules stipulate that production, transport and sales must be separate (unbundling), that third parties are granted access to the tube and that the network charges are regulated by the network agency.

Nord Stream 2 AG can appeal the decision before the Federal Court of Justice.

The gas pipeline from Siberia to Germany is scheduled to go into operation this year.

Controversial major project

A reasoning by the court was initially not available. The 1200 kilometer long tube is politically controversial. The USA, Ukraine and other states reject it on the grounds that it makes the buyer states dependent on Russian natural gas supplies. The Switzerland-based project company Nord Stream 2 belongs to the Russian state-owned company Gazprom. Five western companies are participating in the financing of the pipe: the Düsseldorf utility Uniper, Wintershall Dea, the Austrian energy company OMV and Shell. The total costs are estimated at 9.5 billion euros, half of which is taken over by Gazprom and the other half by the European partners. According to earlier information, OMV and Uniper are each with up to 950 million euros.

In court it was not about the question of whether the pipeline can be built to the end. Nord Stream 2 AG appealed to the court after the Federal Network Agency declared in May 2020 that it would not exclude the tube from regulation on German territory. The court now had to clarify whether the line, which had not been fully completed, was completed by the deadline of 2019 within the meaning of the law. According to the Federal Network Agency, unbundling does not mean that Gazprom has to sell the pipeline. Other measures, including separate bookkeeping, are also possible.