The controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has been completed.

Russia announced Friday, September 10 the end of its installation, a tube to Germany which according to its detractors will increase European dependence on Moscow.

The chief executive of gas giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller, said that this morning, at 8.45 a.m. Moscow time (5.45 a.m. GMT), construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was fully completed, the Russian public group said.

Russian triumph

This announcement tastes of triumph for Russia, while the diplomatic tensions generated by this 10 billion euro project were once so strong that some believed it would never see the light of day.

For its detractors, in Europe as in the United States, the tube will durably increase European energy dependence on Russia, the West's great strategic rival, and constitutes a betrayal of the interests of Ukraine, an ally. West facing Moscow.

Nord Stream 2 is to double Russian gas deliveries to Germany, the main promoter of the project.

This tube, with a capacity of 55 billion m3 of gas per year, travels 1,230 kilometers under the Baltic Sea on the same route as its twin Nord Stream 1, operational since 2012.

For years, the project opposed Washington and Berlin, but also the Europeans between them, as well as Russia and the Ukraine.

Finally, a surprising turnaround in Washington, after the coming to power of Joe Biden, allowed the development of a German-American compromise to try to close this dispute.

Not "a weapon"

One of the most controversial aspects of Nord Stream 2 is that by bypassing the traditional delivery route via Ukraine, it will deprive the country of around € 1 billion per year in transit costs.

Kiev also fears that this will make it more vulnerable vis-à-vis Moscow, depriving it of an important lever of influence.

Criticized on this issue, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed in Ukraine at the end of August that her country would do everything to extend the Russian-Ukrainian transit contract expiring in 2024 and insisted that gas should not be used by Moscow as "a weapon. ".

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told him to consider Nord Stream 2 a "dangerous geopolitical weapon".

Operated by the Russian giant Gazprom, the project, estimated at more than 10 billion euros, was co-financed by five European groups in the energy sector (OMV, Engie, Wintershall Dea, Uniper and Shell).

Germany is within the European Union (EU) the main promoter of the gas pipeline, which, according to it, is above all economic and will help it to accomplish the energy transition in which it is committed.

The United States has been standing up against this project from the start, which would weaken Ukraine, considering that it strengthens Russian interests, at a time when the Americans also want to sell their shale gas to Europeans.

Europe divided

Europeans are divided.

Poland and the Baltic countries are worried that the EU will bow to Russian ambitions.

Even in Germany, Nord Stream is not unanimous.

A report by the German economic research institute DIW in 2018 judged the gas pipeline to be based on forecasts which "considerably overestimate the demand for natural gas in Germany and Europe".

The administration of former US President Donald Trump passed a law in 2019 imposing sanctions against companies involved in the construction.

Started in April 2018, the work was therefore interrupted in December 2019, when only 150 kilometers of tube remained to be laid in German and Danish waters, before resuming a year later.

Joe Biden gave up blocking the project, believing that it was too late and that it was better to bet on the alliance with Germany, whose cooperation Washington wishes to ensure in other files, in particular vis-à-vis the China.

With AFP

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