On the shores of the Baltic, fifty kilometers from the Polish border, Lubmin appears as a tourist paradise: “Long beaches, rocks and picturesque pine forests provide a natural setting of great purity. Gentle waves roll along the swimming area, covered with fine sand. Thanks to the maritime climate and the healthy air coming from the open sea, relaxation and leisure are guaranteed ”, can we read on the website of this German municipality of 2,000 inhabitants, located in the Land of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
But Lubmin is not just that. A stone’s throw from the seaside resort, there is also an industrial port, a former nuclear power station – the largest in the former GDR -, a major engine lubricants factory and the point of arrival for two gas pipelines from from Russia: Nord Stream 1, inaugurated at the end of 2011, and Nord Stream 2, whose work is 94% complete but no one knows if it will ever work because of the opposition it arouses in Washington.
The United States is indeed seeking to torpedo the project with sanctions against participating companies, and several European countries, including Poland, see it as a dangerous instrument that would allow Russia to increase its influence in Europe.
For the mayor of Lubmin, Axel Vogt, such a scenario – that of an abandonment of Nord Stream 2, which is to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year to Europe – is quite simply “Unthinkable”. Admittedly, this elected representative of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, is aware of the new battery of sanctions voted by the US Senate on 1er January, and the position of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, just as hostile to the project supported by his predecessor Donald Trump. But he also knows that the Russian ship Fortuna left the German port of Wismar for Danish waters in mid-January to resume construction of the pipeline, which had been suspended since the end of 2019. “I do not imagine that a project of this magnitude, which cost billions of euros and whose work is almost finished, does not see the light of day”, explains Vogt.
“Nord Stream 2 is not a political project, but it has become a political subject. I regret it because the stakes are economic ”, says Franz Kracht, Mayor of Sassnitz
“Optimist”, the mayor of Lubmin – for whom the entry into service of Nord Stream would bring in 1.5 million euros per year in business taxes – is also due to the support provided by the German authorities. That of Mme Merkel, first of all, who again declared on Thursday January 21 that “Its position on Nord Stream 2 has not changed”. That of Armin Laschet, elected president of the CDU on January 16, who has always said that he wanted the site to be completed. And that, finally, of the regional government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, whose Minister-President, Manuela Schwesig, member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), recently announced the creation of a foundation, one of whose stated objectives is to guarantee the continuation of the works thanks to a legal statute allowing it to buy construction equipment without falling under the blow of the American sanctions.
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