{"id":50093,"date":"2019-12-13T06:54:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T11:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=50093"},"modified":"2019-12-13T06:54:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T11:54:40","slug":"germany-slams-trumps-meddling-in-europes-energy-after-nord-stream-2-sanctions-passed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=50093","title":{"rendered":"Germany Slams Trump&#8217;s &#8216;Meddling&#8217; In Europe&#8217;s Energy After Nord Stream 2 Sanctions Passed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/energy\/germany-trump-dont-meddle-europes-energy-after-nord-stream-2-sanctions-passed\">Germany Slams Trump&#8217;s &#8216;Meddling&#8217; In Europe&#8217;s Energy After Nord Stream 2 Sanctions Passed<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Included in Wednesday&#8217;s just passed mammoth&nbsp;2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)&nbsp;<em>\u2014<\/em>&nbsp;which increases the Pentagon budget by $22 billion (to a whopping $738 billion)&nbsp;<em>\u2014&nbsp;<\/em>were long-threatened sanctions on Russia&#8217;s Nord Stream 2 underwater natural gas pipeline.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the House bill, expected to be approved by the Senate sometime next week before Trump signs it into law, are\u00a0<strong>measures which specifically<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>target companies assembling the pipeline<\/strong>, a last ditch US effort to block the\u00a0controversial\u00a0760-mile project that would allow Russia to export natural gas directly to Germany,\u00a0depriving Ukraine of badly needed gas transit fees along the current route for Russian supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/nord-stream.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption><em>Via Russia Business Today<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The $10.5 billion Nord Stream 2, which runs parallel to the existing Nord Stream pipeline,&nbsp;has been spearheaded by Gazprom and five European energy companies, and is reportedly&nbsp;<strong>nearing completion<\/strong>. It&#8217;s expected to double Russian gas shipments to the EU&#8217;s biggest economy Germany. Washington fears it will give Moscow significant geopolitical leverage over Europe while also punishing Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the past months projected completion has been consistently named as &#8220;by year&#8217;s end&#8221;, hence the Congressional scramble to &#8216;act now&#8217; on sanctions, but reports say it&#8217;s still months away from completion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Regardless, Gazprom head&nbsp;Alexei Miller has for months said it&#8217;s&nbsp;<strong>\u201cpast the point of no return\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;and that nothing would derail it. \u201cWe are working from the idea that Nord Stream 2 will be realized strictly in accordance with the planned timetable,\u201d he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/russiabusinesstoday.com\/energy\/gazproms-miller-says-nord-stream-2-past-point-of-no-return\/\">previously told<\/a>shareholders.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump has long charged Germany with&nbsp;<strong>essentially giving &#8220;billions&#8221; of dollars to Russia<\/strong>. Earlier this year a France-led effort in the European Union attempted to halt the project, however, Germany came out on top.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now Berlin is hitting back over the new sanctions effort, charging Washington with&nbsp;<strong>&#8220;interference&#8221;<\/strong>&nbsp;<strong>and meddling<\/strong>&nbsp;in European energy policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Angela Merkel\u2019s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-12-12\/germany-tells-trump-not-to-meddle-in-europe-s-energy-issues\"><em>Bloomberg<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Germany Slams Trump&#8217;s &#8216;Meddling&#8217; In Europe&#8217;s Energy After Nord Stream 2 Sanctions Passed Included in Wednesday&#8217;s just passed mammoth&nbsp;2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)&nbsp;\u2014&nbsp;which increases the Pentagon budget by $22 billion (to a whopping $738 billion)&nbsp;\u2014&nbsp;were long-threatened sanctions on Russia&#8217;s Nord Stream 2 underwater natural gas pipeline.&nbsp; In the House bill, expected to be approved [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[28665,694,827],"class_list":["post-50093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-nordstream-2-pipeline","tag-russia","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50094,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50093\/revisions\/50094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}