COPENHAGEN: Denmark is under pressure to rule on whether a new Russian pipeline supplying gas to Germany can be built near its Baltic coast, a decision that puts it in the line of fire from friend and foe alike.
Denmark does not want to act alone in resolving one of the biggest foreign policy quandaries that the small European Union nation has faced since the Cold War.
But its search for a united EU stance on the proposed pipeline is deadlocked by divisions among member states over whether to do more business with Moscow despite its military incursions in Ukraine and Syria and accusations it used a nerve agent in an attempted assassination on British soil.
The Danish government is facing fierce lobbying by Russia, EU allies and the United States over the 9.5 billion euro ($11.7 billion) Nord Stream 2 project championed by President Vladimir Putin and financed by five Western firms.
“They are under huge pressure from all sides,” one senior EU official said. There is no definite timing for a decision, which had been expected this spring but has been delayed while Denmark considers the security implications. But officials say it cannot be postponed indefinitely.
A Danish veto, under new legislation allowing it to do so on security grounds, would force Russia, which supplies about one third of Europe’s gas needs, to find a new route for the pipeline.
Danish officials say they are loath to take sides and are unwilling to rush the decision.
“In some ways this is too big for Denmark,” one official said.
Under the new legislation, Danish diplomats are drafting an opinion on whether foreign and security policy concerns justify blocking 139 km of the pipeline passing through Danish waters.
The opinion may take account of objections by EU allies: that the pipeline would undercut EU support for Kiev by depriving it of gas transit fees, increase dependence on Gazprom or concentrate gas supplies along a single route to Germany.
