tribune. Crossing the Baltic Sea, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will link the cities of Ust-Luga in Russia and Greifswald in Germany. Its two pipelines will cross the waters of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany over a distance of 1,200 km to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of gas to Western Europe each year. But for ministers and diplomats, the scope of the project is as large as the number of controversies it generates.
While the fate of the pipeline was still uncertain on October 30, its realization now seems inevitable since Denmark gave the green light to Nord Stream 2 AG, the consortium responsible for the construction of the pipeline and led by Gazprom, to lay the final 147 km of pipes in Danish territorial waters, south-east of the island of Bornholm. Denmark took 2.5 years to make this decision, which is highly controversial and politicized in the eyes of opponents of the project. Installed at an astounding speed of 3 km per day, the pipeline should be completed in a few weeks.
However, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak recently admitted that the project continues to lag behind, and will not be operational until the middle of next year. Why ? The Nord Stream 2 project is at the heart of the battle over the implementation of the new European gas directive, adopted in April 2019. This modified the rules relating to the internal gas market, which dated from 2009.
The complex rules of gas transport
The main change consists in extending the application of the rules regulating the transport of gas between Member States to the transport of gas to and from third countries, non-members of the European Union (EU) or the European Association Free Trade Agreement (EFTA). However, the new regulations do not apply equally to all pipelines connecting the EU with third countries. It does not cover gas lines that have been "Completed" before May 23, 2019.
Nor does it apply to projects supported by the European Commission, in particular to the gas pipelines forming the South European gas corridor which links Azerbaijan to Italy via Turkey and the southern Balkans. The Baltic Pipe gas pipeline project, which will transport Norwegian gas to Poland via Denmark, will also be exempt. Nord Stream 2, on the other hand – and despite German support – cannot become operational before the member states agree on the conditions for implementing the new directive.
