Rainer Seele, the chief executive officer of Austrian energy company OMV and corporate ally of Gazprom, recently called on Europe to defend itself from the proposed US sanctions aimed to stop Nord Stream 2. It is far from clear to which ‘Europe’ Seele is referring. In December 2018, the European Parliament voted 433 to 105 in favour of a resolution calling for the construction of Nord Stream 2 to be cancelled. Furthermore, in February 2019, twenty-four of the twenty-eight member states were prepared to vote to extend the 2009 EU Gas Directive formally to import pipelines such as Nord Stream 2, creating uncertainty in the current financing, business structure, and commercial logic of the project.
Ukraine's Energy Challenge
OP-ED
Alan Riley: Nord Stream 2 – from EU law to US sanctions law
Environmental activists hold up a poster reading "Clog pipelines" as they sit in a tube on the construction site for the European Gas Pipeline Link (EUGAL) pipeline in Wrangelsburg, northeastern Germany, on May 16, 2019.
