Today the German Chancellor Angela Merkel he is in Poland for a long-planned visit that marks the beginning of a tour of European countries before his farewell from public life. To mark the scene a shadow that shakes and not a little the internal debate in Poland: the unconditional support of the Germany to the Russian pipeline Nord Stream 2.
The pipeline pits Germany, the EU's largest economy, against Central and Eastern European nations, some of which are members of the EU. These countries argue that the project will increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas. Even the former US president Donald Trump during his mandate, on several occasions, he had shown opposition to the German choice on Nord Stream 2, so much so that, as a symbolic retaliation, in June 2020 he had threatened to move American troops (9500 units) from Germany to Poland.
"Merkel was seen as someone who understoodCentral and Eastern Europe vat, ”he said Michael Baranowski, head of the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund, adding that Polish-German relations today are in a "difficult moment". "I think it will be remembered as Ms Nord Stream 2, from the Polish point of view. "
To influence Polish public opinion, in an anti-German sense, the nationalists in power in Poland, the PiS. PiS politicians have repeatedly called for war reparations from Germany.
The Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz he said on Polish public radio last Friday that he is expected to be among the topics covered by the meeting with the prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki there will be Nord Stream 2 and the Polish national recovery plan, which was not approved by Brussels due to concerns over the Warsaw crisis.
Merkel is also worried that differences on the judicial issue are growing between Eastern Europe and the rest of Europe, ”a German government source told Reuters. Poland and Hungary are in dispute with Brussels over issues such asjudicial independence, freedom of the press and LGBT rights. A conflict that has recently intensified so much so that Brussels has taken legal action against Warsaw and Budapest.
"It is very important that the next German government supports a stronger EU response to stop further fallout in Poland, Hungary and other countries", he has declared Daniela Schwarzer, executive director for Europe and Eurasia at the Open Society Foundation.
The pipeline of discord ended yesterday
The clock strikes 8,45 Moscow time on September 10, 2021, when a notification on the Telegram App announces the completion of the gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany. "The construction work on the Nord Stream 2 has been completed ", he writes Alexey Miller, CEO of Gazprom. Owned by Gazprom, the pipeline was built with the investments of several European companies and passes under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Poland and Ukraine. This is why both countries have always opposed the project. The same thing did the United States, despite the president Joe Biden decided not to punish the German companies that supervised the shipyards, following the agreement reached on 21 July last which imposes sanctions only on Russian ships and companies. The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky defined the pipeline as ageopolitical weapon of Russia, while for the company this is a successful operation based on the experience of the Nord Stream gas pipeline already in operation. A way to double the supply of gas to European consumers.