Morawiecki fears a crisis in Ukraine over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hopes that the new German government will change course in connection with the disputed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. According to him, Russia is using it as a weapon against Ukraine. "I expect the new German government to do everything possible to ensure that Nord Stream 2 does not become one of the tools in President Putin's arsenal," Morawiecki told the German DPA. He added that the project was becoming "a tool to blackmail Ukraine and Moldova, as well as a tool to manipulate energy prices." The approximately 1,230-kilometer-long gas pipeline is expected to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea. This means that it will bypass Ukraine, which will lose a considerable amount of funding from transit fees. The construction of the pipeline has already been completed, but it is not yet transporting the raw material, as the process of certification of the pipeline has been suspended by the German regulatory authority. He cited the inconsistency of the legal form of the pipeline operator with German law as a reason. According to European Union rules, the pipeline operator must not be a gas supplier at the same time. However, Nord Stream 2 AG is a subsidiary of the Russian group Gazprom, which is a key supplier of gas to Europe. The Polish prime minister also drew attention to a possible energy crisis in Ukraine. He said the growing number of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine was a cause for concern, but another threat posed by the energy crisis in Ukraine due to its high dependence on energy imports from Russia. "Ukraine is dependent on Russian supplies of oil, gas and, in addition, coal," he told the DPA. In this context, he warned that according to some analyzes, blackmailing Ukraine by energy could lead to a blakckout in Ukraine, ie a large-scale power outage.