Political scientist Kamkin said that the rejection of the Nord Stream will harm the business reputation of Germany
Photo: Stine Jacobsen / Reuters
Germany's refusal to launch Nord Stream 2 is fraught with multi-billion dollar lawsuits in arbitration courts and will harm Berlin's business reputation. So the possible damage to Germany was assessed by Alexander Kamkin, a leading researcher at the Center for German Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with Lenta.ru.
According to him, the statement of German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habek about the influence of geopolitical factors on the launch of the gas pipeline can be regarded as a “trail” of the visit of German leader Olaf Scholz to the United States. “Scholz, despite the fact that he comes from the Social Democratic Party, belongs to the caste of globalist politicians for whom a special regime of transatlantic relations is a priority,” Kamkin said.
Because of this, the German chancellor found himself between two fires: the United States, on the one hand, and German business, worried about possible multi-billion dollar losses, on the other. The political scientist suggested that Scholz would try to maneuver to the end, but could “jump off” the project under US pressure, citing the opinion of the regulator and technical subtleties: the German government had already warned that no compensation would be paid in case of non-certification of the gas pipeline.
At the same time, the refusal of the gas pipeline is fraught with serious political risks for the coalition government. Kamkin noted that the Germans “vote with their wallets, not their hearts,” and the continuation of the current course, which ties common economic sense to the “politics of values,” will hurt these wallets and will only warm up the population's dissatisfaction with the government. “We can’t talk about a possible collapse of the coalition yet, most likely this will not happen. But the Social Democrats may come to the next elections with extremely sad results,” he suggested.
Earlier, German Vice Chancellor Habek admitted the influence of the geopolitical situation on the launch of Nord Stream 2. At the same time, he noted that the certification of Nord Stream-2 will take place exclusively in accordance with the legislation of the European Union. Prior to that, on February 8, US President Joe Biden, following negotiations with Scholz, promised to stop the launch of the Russian gas pipeline in the event of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
