Nord Stream 2 must be fully compliant with EU legislation

A project as important as Nord Stream 2 cannot take place in a legal vacuum, the European Commission emphasized on Monday. In turn, the head of the largest center-right faction in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, believes that Nord Stream 2 should not receive EU support.

“If Nord Stream 2 arises, it will have to fully comply with the relevant EU legislation, including in terms of energy and the environment,” European Commission spokesman Jakub Adamovich said on Monday, pointing out that the rules also include onshore infrastructure located in jurisdiction of the EU member states.

He noted that the European Commission and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete have repeatedly expressed concern about the impact of this project on the security of supply, as well as for the future transit of blue fuel through Ukraine. Adamovich added that it is in the interests of the entrepreneurs participating in the project to obtain legal certainty and, obviously, they cannot act solely on the basis of the law of the Russian Federation. “When Nord Stream 2 is built, we will have to act within a legal framework that takes due account of our basic energy market rules,” he stressed.

The so-called third EU energy package provides for the separation of gas sales from transmission and ensuring access of a large number of operators to the transmission infrastructure. EU rules are heavily criticized by Russia's Gazprom.

Nord Stream is a project with a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. In early September 2015, representatives of Russian Gazprom, German E.ON and BASF-Wintershall, Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell, French Engi (formerly GdF Suez) and Austrian OMV signed a legally binding shareholder agreement on the construction of the pipeline.