Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, called it a mistake, while the US president, Donald Trump, has branded it very inappropriate and a “very bad thing for Nato”.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline to take Russian gas to Germany is arguably Europe’s most controversial energy project, drawing opposition from Ukraine, which it will bypass, and uniting the US, eastern EU states and the European commission, which fears it will undermine the bloc’s ‘energy union’ plans.
But this month a compromise deal on pipeline rules was forged by Germany and France, which should allow the scheme to proceed.
Dmitry Marinchenko, an analyst at the credit ratings agency Fitch, said the agreement was welcome. “This is a good compromise which may work for all the parties – Russia, the EU and Ukraine.”
Nord Stream 2 has been eight years in the making so far, with 434 miles of pipe out of a total of 746 laid across the Baltic Sea alongside an existing pipeline between Russia and Germany. The Russian state gas firm Gazprom and five western energy companies, Uniper, Wintershall, Shell, OMV and Engie, are behind the scheme.
