Let it flow

Merkel and Medvedev opened new gas pipeline

Russia and Germany are connected on a new dimension. This week Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev formally opened a new underwater gas pipeline that will link Russia’s gas fields in Vyborg near St Petersburg with Lubmin in northeastern Germany.

The Nordstream pipeline runs 760 miles under the Baltic to pump gas from Siberia to the European Union.This “marks a new stage in Gazprom’s strategy”, writes the French newspaper Le Monde. For Russia this is a “combined drive to cooperate with the Europeans and to reinforce its position as a key player in the supply of gas to the Old Continent”.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel headlined “Controversial Project Launched” and continued: “They symbolically turned a wheel to start the flow of gas (…), hailing the controversial project as a long-term guarantee of good relations between Russia and the European Union.” According to the magazine Merkel said: “The pipeline made a major contribution towards a reliable energy supply for Europe. (…) Russia would be a major supplier for decades, she added.”

The 7.3 billion Euro project is “the biggest post-Soviet era natural gas pipeline to Europe”, stated the news agency Reuters. But what Medvedev calls a steady energy supply for the continent annoys others. “Analysts have warned that the 1,224-km pipeline from western Siberia to Germany that bypasses traditional transit nations would divide the continent. Poland and Ukraine see it as an attack on their national interests”, so Reuters.

Watch the opening of the new Russian-German-connection: Video Reuters

Updated: 10. November 2011