There was a point in her speech when the otherwise cool Prime Minister almost allowed herself to have an emotional outburst.

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which she calls the "Baltic Sea Pipeline", is an important economic factor for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

“And I have to say that I find it adventurous that people are now being criticized for standing up for the economy in their country.

Yes, what else?!” Manuela Schwesig then scolded.

Ralph Bollman

Correspondent for economic policy and deputy head of business and “Money & More” for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper in Berlin.

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The port of Mukran on the island of Rügen, for example, will be strengthened as a basis for wind power projects or the construction of pipelines to Norway.

“The Lubmin site also benefits from the construction of the pipeline with the two landing stations.

Companies that equip special ships are based in Western Pomerania.” The fact that the project is about jobs is “nothing shabby”, but the task of a state government.

A little over a year has passed since Schwesig's emotional appearance in front of the Schwerin state parliament.

It was January 7, 2021, the day on which parliament almost unanimously approved the now notorious "Foundation for Climate and Environmental Protection MV" of the then state government made up of SPD and CDU: the construct that, under the ecological guise, was primarily designed to circumvent American sanctions for pipeline construction;

The money and idea for this came from the operating consortium under Russian leadership.

Hardly a day goes by without new inconsistencies becoming known.

And at the same time it is the extreme example of economic development at any price, which is not untypical for the eastern federal states.

Not much is left of economic development

The head of government also cited other arguments in her state parliament speech.

She indulged in much poetry about climate and environmental protection as the alleged "main purpose" of the foundation.

She spoke about gas power plants as a temporary solution on the way to renewable energy.

In the explanatory memorandum to the law, the project was therefore presented almost as a gesture of solidarity for the rest of Central Europe, with Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania making “its contribution as a reliable partner” for other states as well.

Schwesig was pretty blunt about plans to circumvent the United States' extraterritorial sanctions.

"No one who is involved in the construction, in the completion of the pipeline, is doing anything wrong or even wrong," she claimed.

"Whoever tries to prevent the construction of the pipeline at the last second for their own economic interests and to sanction German and European companies is doing the wrong thing."

None of this changed the fact that the argument of regional economic development remained central.

Not much of it remains to this day.

Critics of the pipeline project count the newly created jobs with relish: There are just five permanent full-time jobs at the landing point of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, with all the trimmings in the administration of Nord Stream 2 AG in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, perhaps employment “in the lower double digits area,” criticizes Hannes Damm, energy politician for the Greens in the state parliament.