[GGP] Lost in Regulation: The EU and Nord Stream 2
The statements, opinions and data contained in the content published in Global Gas Perspectives are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publisher and the editor(s) of Natural Gas World.
This paper by Dr Severin Fischer was originally published by the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich in November 2017.
The pipeline project Nord Stream 2 truly is a dividing issue. In 2015, Gazprom and five partner companies from EU member states announced that they would build a second 9.5 billion Euro twin set of gas pipelines for delivering an additional 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to Germany on the Baltic seabed. Since then, a broad debate on implications for foreign, security and climate policies has emerged. While for two years, heads of states and governments from Central-Eastern Europe and Baltic Sea neighbors have heavily criticized the project in the European Council, and letters from national capitals and the European Parliament have been sent to the European Commission objecting to the project, adequate legal measures to prevent the construction process have remained unclear. The main reason for this is that Nord Stream 2 neither relies on public financing from the EU or member state budgets, nor on a multilateral agreement between governments. As a commercial investment largely outside of EU member states’ territorial jurisdiction, it is thus not easy to stop. This does not mean, however, that there is a lack of legal frameworks. Like other infrastructure projects, the Nord Stream 2 developers have to fulfill the permitting criteria described in national laws of Baltic Sea littoral states, in EU law and in international law under the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” (UNCLOS) and the Espoo Convention on environmental aspects. Only Denmark’s coalition government is trying to prevent granting a permission by a new law, allowing the foreign minister to stop infrastructure projects in territorial waters on the basis of security concerns. Depending on the development of this domestic law-making procedure, the Nord Stream 2 developers could be forced to avoid Danish territorial waters and change the anticipated route. This would result in a delay of pipe laying, but most likely not stop the project. Contrary to cases of publicly funded infrastructure, the realization of the Nord Stream 2 project is not subject to the agreements reached in political negotiation processes between states. Thus, unless the project developers act against existing laws, direct political influence on the pipeline construction remains limited.
Dr Severin Fischer is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich.
The statements, opinions and data contained in the content published in Global Gas Perspectives are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publisher and the editor(s) of Natural Gas World.