Calls grow for Angela Merkel to drop Putin pipeline
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Berlin — Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure from within her own party to drop support for a controversial gas pipeline with Russia after links point to the Kremlin in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Norbert Roettgen, head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a candidate to head Merkel’s Christian Democratic party, said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline needs to be stopped because completing it would reward rather than punish Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“After the poisoning of Nawalny we need a strong European answer, which Putin understands. The EU should jointly decide to stop Nord Stream 2,” he said on Thursday on Twitter. “Diplomatic rituals are no longer enough.”
In an editorial, Bild — Germany’s largest daily newspaper — called on Merkel to “stop the Putin pipeline,” saying failure to act would mean financing the next Kremlin attack.
Merkel said tests showed “unequivocally” that Navalny was poisoned by a military-grade novichok nerve agent and called on the Russian government to provide answers. The substance was used in the March 2018 attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil, prompting a concerted expulsion of 150 Russian diplomats.
Merkel plans to consult with EU and Nato allies to formulate a response in the coming days, but did not make a proposal.
Alexander Dobrindt, the deputy caucus leader and a member of the Bavarian branch of Merkel’s bloc, demanded new EU sanctions against Russia. There will have to be a “common European response to this deed,” the legislator said at a press briefing on Wednesday, as well as “uncomfortable and serious” discussions between the Russian and German governments.
Armed forces laboratory
Before a special German armed forces laboratory confirmed Navalny’s poisoning with novichok, the chancellor decoupled the status of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from the attack on the Putin critic. The project is a joint Russian-European economic venture and linking it to the Navalny case “isn’t appropriate”, she said on Friday.
The Nord Stream 2 consortium is led by Russia’s Gazprom. The group, which includes BASF’s Wintershall DEA unit and Austria’s OMV, has invested about €8bn so far on the 1,200km pipeline. Even before the Navalny poisoning escalated tensions with Russia, the project was in limbo amid renewed efforts by US senators to torpedo its completion.
“Some projects could be blocked,” said Andrey Kortunov, director-general of the Kremlin-founded Russian ...
Norbert Roettgen, head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a candidate to head Merkel’s Christian Democratic party, said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline needs to be stopped because completing it would reward rather than punish Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“After the poisoning of Nawalny we need a strong European answer, which Putin understands. The EU should jointly decide to stop Nord Stream 2,” he said on Thursday on Twitter. “Diplomatic rituals are no longer enough.”
In an editorial, Bild — Germany’s largest daily newspaper — called on Merkel to “stop the Putin pipeline,” saying failure to act would mean financing the next Kremlin attack.
Merkel said tests showed “unequivocally” that Navalny was poisoned by a military-grade novichok nerve agent and called on the Russian government to provide answers. The substance was used in the March 2018 attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil, prompting a concerted expulsion of 150 Russian diplomats.
Merkel plans to consult with EU and Nato allies to formulate a response in the coming days, but did not make a proposal.
Alexander Dobrindt, the deputy caucus leader and a member of the Bavarian branch of Merkel’s bloc, demanded new EU sanctions against Russia. There will have to be a “common European response to this deed,” the legislator said at a press briefing on Wednesday, as well as “uncomfortable and serious” discussions between the Russian and German governments.
Armed forces laboratory
Before a special German armed forces laboratory confirmed Navalny’s poisoning with novichok, the chancellor decoupled the status of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from the attack on the Putin critic. The project is a joint Russian-European economic venture and linking it to the Navalny case “isn’t appropriate”, she said on Friday.
The Nord Stream 2 consortium is led by Russia’s Gazprom. The group, which includes BASF’s Wintershall DEA unit and Austria’s OMV, has invested about €8bn so far on the 1,200km pipeline. Even before the Navalny poisoning escalated tensions with Russia, the project was in limbo amid renewed efforts by US senators to torpedo its completion.
“Some projects could be blocked,” said Andrey Kortunov, director-general of the Kremlin-founded Russian ...