Germany debates proposal to re-open Nord Stream pipelines

Parliamentarians of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have caused a political row in Germany by welcoming an apparent US initiative to repair and re-open the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday confirmed that negotiations with the US over Ukraine had included a discussion of restoring Nord Stream, after the German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that a US investor had applied to the US government to buy the pipeline.

CDU Bundestag member Thomas Bareiss welcomed the idea in a long LinkedIn post in which he remarked "how enterprising our American friends are."

"When peace is restored and the weapons fall silent between #Russia and #Ukraine (and hopefully that will happen soon), relations will normalize, the embargoes will be lifted sooner or later and, of course, #gas can flow again, perhaps this time in a #pipeline under US control," he wrote.

He was backed up by Jan Heinisch, a member of the CDU's energy working group in the party's coalition negotiations with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). "If a just and secure peace is found one day, then we must be allowed to talk again about buying Russian gas," Heinisch told news outlet Politico.

What is Nord Stream?

Nord Stream consists of two gas pipelines, each containing two pipes, running from northwestern Russia to Germany's northeastern coast. While Nord Stream 2, completed in 2021, has never been put into operation, Nord Stream 1 was opened in 2011, and supplied Russian gas all over Europe through a company co-owned by a consortium including Russia's Gazprom and various German, French and Dutch companies.

Nord Stream 1 was shut down by Russia on September 1, 2022, on the pretext that European Union sanctions had made it technically impossible to keep it running (this was denied by German tech company Siemens, which maintained the turbine).

Then, a few weeks later, on September 26, three of the four Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed in an apparent act of sabotage. Though the saboteurs have yet to be conclusively identified, German authorities last year issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian suspect, who is still at large.

Back into Russian dependence?

The German Economy Ministry, currently still controlled by the Green Party in Olaf Scholz's coalition government, dismissed the notion of restarting Russian gas imports. In a statement issued shortly after rumors of the US-Russian discussions first surfaced in early March, a spokesperson said, "The independence from Russian gas is of defense and strategic importance to the German government, and it will hold to that."

But Germany is about to form a new government, almost certainly under the chancellorship of CDU leader Friedrich Merz with the SPD as the junior coalition partner. Still, a return to buying Russian gas — even in a hypothetical future when Russia and Ukraine are at peace — would represent a significant U-turn for Germany.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), for its part, was happy to see Bareiss' comments.

"I welcome the fact that a CDU member of parliament is seeking a way to pursue interest-driven politics," the far-right party's co-leader Tino Chrupalla told public broadcaster ZDF last week. "We need to return to sourcing affordable gas from Russia, under the control of the trading partners involved."

But the idea has been roundly dismissed by energy policy experts in Germany. "I don't think this is a good idea," said Claudia Kemfert, head of the energy, transport and environment department at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

"We've known for a long time that Russia is not a reliable supplier," she told DW in an email. "In view of the fossil energy wars worldwide, it would be disastrous to become dependent on an aggressor again — geopolitically, it would be irresponsible."

Not only that, a Russian-US deal on Nord Stream would effectively leave Germany doubly dependent, she added.

Michael Rodi, professor of environmental and energy law at Greifswald University, was baffled that this debate has reemerged in Germany.

"It's a strange discussion," he told DW. "It's surprising that it should come from the CDU, but it's not surprising at all that the Greens take the counter position."

SPD's relations with Russia

Apart from the AfD, the German party that has historically been most open to maintaining ties with Russia is the SPD. "Change through rapprochement" was the slogan with which the Social Democrats advocated a detente with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Former Social Democrat chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who describes himself as a personal friend of Russia's President Vladimir Putin, is still nominally head of the Nord Stream board. In the months following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the SPD came under heavy attack from the CDU for its old Russian connections and the key part it played in negotiating the Nord Stream deal.

In 2022, Merz — then leader of the opposition — told radio network Deutschlandfunk that Germany's energy dependence on Russia must be ended immediately, and demanded a parliamentary inquiry into the SPD's ties to Russia: Such an inquiry, he hinted, "will probably uncover that the SPD's entanglements are much deeper than we know today."

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, of the SPD, was even forced to admit his culpability in his role as foreign minister under Angela Merkel: "My commitment to Nord Stream 2 was clearly a mistake," the head of state said in 2022. "We held on to bridges that Russia no longer believed in and that our partners warned us against."

Economic and environmental concerns

Though restoring the pipeline is thought to be technically feasible — estimates have put the cost at $500 million — the Nord Stream company, based in Switzerland, is currently in bankruptcy negotiations, which means the pipelines are potentially for sale at a low price.

But any buyer would effectively be banking on both a Ukraine peace deal leading to the easing of sanctions on Russia, and also that Europe's attempts to transition to renewable energy are too slow. "If the energy transition has success, there will be no big market for Russian gas," predicted Rodi.

"Fossil natural gas has no future for us — that much is clear," added DIW's Kemfert. "As part of the Paris Agreement, we are committed to climate neutrality, which we must achieve. The decision to phase out fossil fuels was taken a long time ago — now we finally have to act."

But it remains unclear whether there is the political will to push through the energy transition and maintain energy independence from Russia in the future. It seems that some in the next German government, at least, aren't so committed to the latter.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

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