Indeed Germany appears to be highly unlikely to sanction the principals of the Russian Government concerning Your Guy Polonium Putin and the Navalny poisoning. Neither will your government be likely to sanction Nord Stream 2 about it.
Nor is Germany going to give up on trying to complete the pipeline even if it has to wait a period of time to try to resume construction. So the US is initiating a coalition of countries to prevent NS 2 and to prevent certification of NS 2 should the pipeline ever be completed in, say, 14 months or after 24 months when the final 99 miles of pipe might be attempted yet again.
BILD INTERVIEW WITH SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO:
"The German government is so disappointing“
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on sanctions against Iran, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny and Nord Stream 2
www.bild.de
Pompeo: We are Building A Coalition Against Nord Stream 2
September 22, 2020
The United States is building a coalition aimed at preventing the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will substantially increase the flow of Russian gas into Europe, the U.S. Secretary of State told German daily Bild in an interview. “From the US point of view, Nord Stream 2 endangers Europe because it makes it dependent on Russian gas and endangers Ukraine - which in my opinion worries many Germans,” Pompeo said. “We hope Nord Stream 2 will not be completed and we are working on a coalition to prevent this from happening. We hope that the German government will also come to this assessment, be it because of what happened to Mr. Navalny or because of the security implications that dependence on Russian gas brings."
The interview comes days after another report in German media said the German government had tried to appease Washington about Nord Stream by offering to build two liquefied natural gas import terminals worth $1.2 billion if the U.S. stopped opposing the pipeline. Germany will be the receiver of most of the gas that will flow through the expanded Nord Stream pipeline. The U.S., however, is against it, claiming it will only increase Russia’s influence in the energy supply of the EU, which would be unwise. Of course, there are also the U.S. gas interests as a major LNG exporter. The alleged poisoning of Putin critic Alexey Navalny recently raised the temperature of the issue, with critics of the Nord Stream project calling for the German government to punish Moscow by withdrawing its support for the infrastructure.
The United States is building a coalition aimed at preventing the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will substantially increase the flow of Russian gas into Europe
oilprice.com
Merkel's offer of 1.2 bn euros by the German government for two US LNG terminals in Germany is empty given Germany has already begun development of three LNG terminals. In fact two terminals would be one fewer than Germans are currently working on.
The present 3 LNG terminals in the pipeline as it were are at the cities of Brunsbuette, Stade, Wilheimshaven on the Baltic at the border with Denmark. So Merkel's muddled offer means the federal government would take Stade and Wilheimshaven from private corporations for the government to finance while leaving the other to the private industrialists who are in fact the muscle of German energy policy. So the offer is a bunch of Malarkey by Merkel and the corporations that run German energy politics and economics. In short, blue smoke and mirrors.
This is a serious parting between the United States and Germany that would be difficult for a Potus Biden to paper over -- if Biden might be interested in a rapprochement, which Biden isn't because he's been against Nord Stream from the outset of it. Germany-Russia vs the United States are going head to head on this and we're going to knock your block off. Put that chip on Germany's shoulder back up where it belongs.
www.spiegel.de
www.welt.de
www.cleanenergywire.org