By Andreas Rinke
WARSAW (Reuters) – Germany is determined to secure Ukraine’s role as a transit route for gas to Europe, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday, as Russian troop movements along the Ukrainian border increased pressure on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Nord Stream 2, which would transport Russian gas to Germany and bypass Ukraine, has not been certified due to regulatory hurdles, while Poland and the United States have called for the pipeline to be halted in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The new German government, sworn in on Wednesday, has not publicly committed to blocking the move.
During his first visit to Poland as Chancellor, Scholz said that Germany felt responsible for the success of the gas transit business through Ukraine, echoing the words of his predecessor Angela Merkel.
“The same applies to future opportunities,” Scholz said at a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. “We will also help Ukraine to become a country that will be an important source of renewable energy and the necessary production resulting from it. We are having concrete discussions about how we can contribute to this,” Scholz said.
Merkel had said that the political basis for the operation of Nord Stream 2 was Russia’s commitment to continue using Ukraine as a gas transit route.
Russia has amassed troops on its border with Ukraine, raising fears of a possible invasion. US President Joe Biden warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday that Nord Stream 2 could be disrupted and tough economic sanctions imposed if troops invade.
US officials have told members of Congress that they have reached an agreement with Germany to shut down Nord Stream 2 if Russia invades Ukraine, a senior congressional official said on Tuesday.
German officials have not confirmed this, but Scholz said on Wednesday there would be consequences if Russia breached the border with Ukraine, a line echoed on Sunday by the Group of Seven richest democracies.
“It is important that Europe makes it clear together that we will not accept this and that we do not agree with what is happening there,” Scholz said in Poland. “We will not accept a violation of these borders.”
During Scholz’s visit, talks also took place on the refugee crisis in Belarus and the independence of the Polish judiciary.
Germany supports Poland’s efforts to stop the influx of migrants from Belarus – a crisis that the European Union blames on Minsk – and announced that it would support Warsaw and Brussels in finding a solution.
Poland and Hungary are locked in a long-running dispute with the European Union over issues such as judicial independence, press freedom and LGBT rights. The dispute has escalated since Brussels took legal action against Warsaw and Budapest.
Scholz expressed his hope that Poland and the EU would find a solution.
Merkel was criticized for saying she could have done more to stop the democratic backsliding in the east of the EU.
(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr and Maria Sheahan in Berlin and Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt. Editing by Ros Russell, David Goodman and Barbara Lewis)
