Foreign Policy: Europe Doubles Down on Russian Gas

Europe has spent years trying to wriggle free from its dependence on Russian energy and the whims of its mercurial president, Vladimir Putin. So why is the continent signing up for a new gas pipeline that will keep Europe hostage to Russian energy shenanigans and outright blackmail for decades to come?

Russia’s multibillion-dollar plans to expand the capacity of the existing Nord Stream pipeline across the Baltic Sea to Germany, announced earlier this year, are taking shape faster than most observers expected — and stand in stark contrast to the bevy of other stillborn energy projects Russia keeps announcing.

Top-flight Western firms such as Shell, E.On, BASF, and Engie (formerly GDF Suez) have banded together with Russia’s Gazprom to double the capacity of Nord Stream, with hopes it will be operational by late 2019. If completed, the 10 billion euro project would enable Russia to finally bypass Ukraine as a transit country. That might be good for Russia, which hates Ukraine being in a position to meddle with its gas exports, but would increase Kiev’s vulnerability to heavy-handed Russian tactics. It could also leave other Eastern European countries in the lurch because they’ve been getting gas shipped directly west from Russia through Kiev.

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