On Monday, a senior official from the German coalition government’s ruling party called for an end to a political impasse over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would supply Russian gas to Germany.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) supports the pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea, but one of its junior coalition partners, the Greens, opposes it.
“During some point, we have to leave the (disagreement) behind us,” Kevin Kuehnert, the SPD’s secretary general, said at a press conference following a meeting of an SPD leadership body.
The pipeline was finished in September, but it is still pending clearance from German and European Union regulators, and some politicians, both in Germany and abroad, have suggested that it should be shut down due to policy differences with Russia.
Discussion of possible penalties against Russia if the Ukraine crisis intensifies as a result of a Russian military buildup near Ukraine’s border, according to Kuehnert, is a separate problem from the Nord Stream 2 project.
“Every fiber of my being opposes the idea of inventing conflicts only to bury a contentious project,” Kuehnert added.
In an interview with Reuters on Sunday, Kuehnert said Nord Stream 2 had been planned for a long time and that it was now time for “political and legal harmony” on the matter. find out more
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats share the SPD’s position. Merkel called the pipeline a commercial initiative, a sentiment echoed by SPD member Chancellor Olaf Scholz.