West wind for "Nord Stream 2"

Experienced yachtsmen (not those who have fun on ships the size of a good aircraft carrier with girls with low social responsibility, but those who are real) increasingly choose for their trips not the southern, but the harsh northern seas. Not leaving, of course, the Baltic Sea. And they know perfectly well that perhaps the most favorable time to turn their movement to the east is just summer time, especially its second half.

It is just these days that moderate westerly winds favorable to the "turn to the east" are steadily blowing to the southernmost tip of the well-known journalists and experts of the Danish island of Bornholm who are following the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

Actually, this is, of course, just a common joke, albeit banal, but quite symbolic: the habitually static situation around Nord Stream 2, it seems, is gradually beginning to take shape in a working one.

And in general, as predicted earlier, the very "favorable moderate westerly winds" begin to appear in it.

The reason is quite understandable, and Christian Pegel, the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure of the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, very influential in Germany, voiced it in an interview with RT Deutsch. It was said, though rather ... um ... rationally, on the verge of cynical, but, as they say, die Christian - you can't say better anyway, so we'll just quote the German politician literally: “Probably, now at the bottom of the Baltic Sea should lie about € 10 billion, so that all interested parties have reasons to defend the project. And by the way, these grounds exist both in Germany and within the European Union, because we will continue to need large volumes of gas.

And now this already quite confident opposition to the arbiters of the destinies of the Western world from the distant overseas citadel of democracy, manifested in the economic sphere not only by large German-speaking business, but also by other serious regional players, just, in our opinion, and most now for the energy future of the European subcontinent is primarily and important.

Because we will certainly complete the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline by itself (we just remind you that we are doing this not only with our own money, but also with European money). But further questions, questions of its functioning and operation, depend not so much on us as on the very American sanctions. And those who fall under them are no longer Russian, but those very "large European players" who now really have to choose their future.

Let us just recall what we have already written about more than once: the Nord Stream 2 project is a project that is much more important for Europe than for the state of the Russian Federation. For us, even its relative potential failure, of course, is rather unpleasant, but by no means critical.

After all, Gazprom has enough routes for delivering Russian natural gas to Europe against the background of the current global market decline: the older brother of Nord Stream 2, the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, is functioning normally, from which almost all "Third energy package" restrictions. Work is being completed on the Turkish streams, and not on the offshore section.

At the very least, the recently signed "Ukrainian route" is operating, which, however, is very poorly filled, but by no means by the ill will of the Ukrainians or "Gazprom": just against the backdrop of clogged storage facilities since last year, a warm winter and, most importantly, the COVID epidemic. 19 demand fell sharply. Which, of course, will recover over time, but it depends only on the European economies themselves how soon and how fully: so much has been written about the problems of coordinating economic recovery in the EU that it hardly makes sense to repeat.

And the elder American brother, taking advantage of the political weakness of not quite sovereign, to put it mildly, Europe, is behaving in full accordance with his old habits of a courtyard, trying to "squeeze out a trifle" not only in the energy sector.

Although the energy here is certainly the tastiest.

In a word, all this beauty in the short-term historical perspective is not even our showdown. The question is a little different. Already in the mid-term historical perspective, our interests with the nationally oriented, not so much European in general, as with the German-speaking business elites in energy issues begin to touchingly coincide.

But with English-speaking - no.

However, they have the North-West (Baltic) business led by the German business and the most significant industrial cluster for Europe at this point in time, to give credit, are not very good.

Everything is simple here.

If European business wants not only to survive, but also to develop, then it really needs to have direct access to energy resources, primarily to pipeline gas - due to the rejection of nuclear energy (from our point of view, stupid, but this is their law) and the gradual withdrawal of coal generation from circulation. And for us this is, excuse me for another banality, - the traditional sales markets for what our country has, excuse me, like a fool of candy wrappers.

And why should we, Russia, miss them.

We will not miss it.

Except for one possibility: if they do not surrender under the pressure of their older brothers from the glorious city of Washington and will not die on their own.

And here we absolutely can neither help nor hinder them with anything.

Forgive me, any people in the economic sense are able to solve such questions exclusively by themselves and for themselves.

Therefore, we are pleased with statements like the one made in an interview with our colleagues by the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure of the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Christian Pegel (by the way, he is not alone in his understanding of current trends in Europe). And the recent (confirmed, as far as we understand, because it was not refuted by anyone), the information of the newspaper Die Welt, which reported that 24 states of the European Union expressed their protest to the American Foreign Ministry in connection with the US sanctions pressure on the participants of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project , also can not but rejoice.

Yes, this directly not only us, but the construction itself does not in any way concern, yes, the US State Department does not care about these ridiculous demarches in the deepest way. But for us this means, first of all, that Europe still has the will to live and it is still possible to deal with them, albeit with considerable caution. But if everything were different, then you cannot deal with suicides, even economic ones (with all that is called respect for choice).

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.