The FDP politician proposes opening the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Berlin “We should open Nord Stream 2 as soon as possible to fill our gas storage facilities for the winter,” Kubicki told the editorial network Germany (RND). There is “no good reason not to open Nord Stream 2”.
If Russia’s President Vladimir Putin then stops supplying gas, Germany has lost nothing. “If more gas reaches us in this way, perhaps even the entire contractually guaranteed quantity, that will help people not have to freeze in winter and our industry will not suffer serious damage,” emphasized Kubicki.
Kubicki does not see a Nord Stream 2 opening as a success for Putin
It is the government’s top priority to ensure that this is the case. It is precisely for this reason that other pipelines from Russia have not been cut. “Once the gas storage tanks are full, we can close Nord Stream 2 again – and the other pipelines too, once we have become independent. But we’re not that yet,” emphasized Kubicki.
When the interviewer pointed out that Putin would exploit this as a great success, the Bundestag Vice President said that everything that ensures that more gas gets here is of more use to Germany than to Putin. “By the way, Putin’s greatest propaganda success would be if we ran out of gas while he was still making good money from us. This must be prevented.”
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Kubicki focuses more on fracking options
The federal government has put the commissioning of the finished Nord Stream 2 pipeline on hold. Russia currently only supplies around 20 percent of the possible quantity via Nord Stream 1. The Russian gas company Gazprom blames technical reasons for this, the federal government considers this to be a pretense.
Kubicki also advocated exploring the possibilities of fracking in Germany in order to become less dependent on natural gas supplies. “Fracking can make a significant contribution to security of supply in Germany for decades,” said the FDP politician.
This is how the Handelsblatt reports on the subject of gas:
Fracking uses pressure and chemicals to extract gas or oil from rock layers. Critics see environmental dangers here. The method is banned in Germany, only test drilling is permitted.
Kubicki’s proposal met with criticism
Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil rejects the proposal. “I don’t think much of that,” said the SPD politician on Friday at an event in Osnabrück. Germany is currently in a very tough dispute with Russia, which started with Russia’s unjustifiable attack on Ukraine.
“Burying Nord Stream 2 was one of the responses by the West to this attack,” Weil said. Backing down at this point would clearly be a victory for Putin without any certainty that energy security will change for the better for the West.
Russia is no longer a reliable partner, Germany must become independent of Russia as quickly as possible and must not become dependent again, said Weil, referring to the LNG terminals planned in Wilhelmshaven and Stade in Lower Saxony.
The terminal in Wilhelmshaven should be able to supply gas by the end of the year. This is an essential contribution to getting through the heating period well. In a year around this time, Germany should be independent of Russian gas.
Finance Minister and FDP leader Christian Lindner is also clearly distancing himself from the demands of his party Vice President Kubicki. Lindner considers the proposal to be “wrong and absurd,” said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Finance on Friday in Berlin.
Deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner said the federal government had no plans to put the pipeline into operation. Resuming the project is out of the question.
More: That’s how dependent Gazprom is on Europe.