Nord Stream 2 - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org Let No Man Take Your Crown Thu, 26 May 2022 06:07:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cropped-Screen-Shot-2024-05-16-at-1.06.13-PM-32x32.png Nord Stream 2 - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org 32 32 Analysis: Schroeder throws in towel as German industry clings on to Russian gas https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/analysis-schroeder-throws-in-towel-as-german-industry-clings-on-to-russian-gas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=analysis-schroeder-throws-in-towel-as-german-industry-clings-on-to-russian-gas Thu, 26 May 2022 06:07:35 +0000 https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=42337 FRANKFURT, May 26 (Reuters) – Gerhard Schroeder has backed off from taking a top role at Russian energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM), dealing a setback to Germany’s gas lobby as it seeks to keep the energy lifeline from Russia open. The … Read More

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]]> FRANKFURT, May 26 (Reuters) – Gerhard Schroeder has backed off from taking a top role at Russian energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM), dealing a setback to Germany’s gas lobby as it seeks to keep the energy lifeline from Russia open.

The former German chancellor played a critical role in establishing the energy bond between the countries and defending it over two decades.

Earlier this month, following a barrage of criticism, Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft (ROSN.MM) said Schroeder was stepping down from its board.

On Tuesday, shortly after the European Parliament had urged his blacklisting, Schroeder said he would not take a nomination to Gazprom’s supervisory board. Germany had also closed Schroeder’s taxpayer-funded office amid a public outcry over Russia ties.

It marks the end of a controversial career that had seen him forge a friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin underscored Schroeder’s importance as a guarantor for a cheap and steady gas flow in February. “The German citizen should look in his pocket and ask if he is willing to pay three times or five times as much for gas and electricity,” Putin told journalists.

“If he doesn’t want to do that, then he should thank Mr. Schroeder,” said Putin, describing him as a “respectable man” who had laid the foundation for Germany’s gas supply from Russia. “That is the result of his work. It’s his achievement.”

But while Schroeder’s departure from the public eye marks the end of his career, Germany’s energy lobby and pro-Russian voices elsewhere continue to make themselves heard.

“Germany’s policy on Russia is very deeply set in history. It goes far deeper than Gerhard Schroeder,” said Veronika Grimm, one of the German government’s chief economic experts that advises the chancellery.

“If he resigns from his offices in Russian companies, that won’t change much. The dependence on Russian gas remains.”

Grimm now advocates a change in tack but suspects that many in Germany oppose such a shift.

“While no one dares say it, there is, reading between the lines, in some circles, a hope that relations can go back to normal with Russia.”

Despite the announcements on sanctions and promises of arms deliveries, much of which have yet to materialize, Germany’s relationship with Russia has changed little since the war in Ukraine, at least where gas flows are concerned.

Russian gas supplies to Germany have been largely uninterrupted since the outbreak of war.

Long-term gas supply contracts are being honoured, on the grounds that cutting them would trigger an economic meltdown.

Uniper (UN01.DE), Germany’s largest importer of Russian gas, last week said its existing gas contracts with Gazprom would run until the middle of the next decade, at odds with Germany’s Green party economy minister Robert Habeck, who is seeking to end reliance by mid-2024.

Uniper Chief Executive Klaus-Dieter Maubach went as far as describing Gazprom as a reliable supplier, contradicting Habeck, who has said the opposite about Russia. read more

Big German industry names, including chemicals giant BASF (BASFn.DE), underline the importance of Russian gas.

“Russia supplies around 50% of the natural gas consumed in Germany. Russian gas shipments therefore underpin the competitiveness of our industry,” BASF CEO Martin Brudermueller said last month.

“If the natural gas supply from Russia were to suddenly stop, it would cause irreversible economic damage.”

Others in industry, too, see Habeck’s timeline for when ties can be cut sceptically.

Markus Krebber, the CEO of RWE (RWEG.DE), Germany’s largest power producer and importer of Russian gas, said early 2025, rather than 2024, was more realistic to cut ties.

Until then, Germany’s gas lobby hopes to maintain the status quo.

Schroeder appears to still have two positions of influence, as chairman of the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream 1, which operates the main artery that keeps supplying German industry with cheap Russian gas.

He is also chairman of the board of directors of Nord Stream 2, the sister pipeline that was shelved indefinitely earlier this year, according to his Linkedin profile. Schroeder did not respond to requests for comment.

For many, severing ties with Russia goes far beyond energy.

“It is not just Gerhard Schroeder who has backed Russia,” Michael Huether of the German Economic Institute.

“There is a long tradition of Russian nostalgia in German politics, driven by history, socialist ideology and disillusionment with America. We’ve often turned a blind eye to Russia’s faults.”

Reporting by John O’Donnell and Christoph Steitz; editing by David Evans

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/schroeder-throws-towel-german-industry-clings-russian-gas-2022-05-26/?rpc=401&

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]]> American unity is key to a Europe whole and free https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/american-unity-is-key-to-a-europe-whole-and-free/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=american-unity-is-key-to-a-europe-whole-and-free Tue, 15 Feb 2022 08:58:29 +0000 https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=41847 After years of relentlessly pushing the EU to diversify and improve energy security, we most recently traveled to Germany in 2020 for the last in-person Munich Security Conference. As representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy, our goal was to … Read More

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]]> After years of relentlessly pushing the EU to diversify and improve energy security, we most recently traveled to Germany in 2020 for the last in-person Munich Security Conference. As representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy, our goal was to further cement progress on these policies. What we found was a Germany that had grown too comfortable with the status quo of European energy affairs. The consequences of this are now coming home to roost.

European member-states made some progress by increasing natural gas import capacity and improving regional integration, including the Ukraine-Poland interconnector that could reinforce Ukrainian energy security. However, one nation stood at odds with this progress. Despite previous public commitments, Germany retrenched and instead stood by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline.

We implored Germany to develop natural gas import terminals, which it continued to promise but didn’t progress, and to retain its nuclear power plants until viable alternatives were identified. Unfortunately, we left Munich unconvinced that Germany could whither Russian lobbying efforts, that the EU could make realistic energy security decisions or that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries would raise the priority of energy security within the alliance. We also traveled to the Balkans to in efforts to reduce Russian gas dependency in Serbia and to Greece, to support its new gas terminals which can supplant Turkstream- Russia’s southern Nord Stream 2.

A year later, President Biden’s reversal of bipartisan sanctions on Nord Stream 2, billed as a “return to normalcy,” returned the pipeline to center-stage. Despite this concession, Germany reaffirmed its reluctance to be a reliable NATO ally and has proffered only reactionary consequences should Russia invade. The reversal of sanctions appears to have only furthered Putin’s gambit to undermine Germany’s resolve.

Throughout this energy security crisis, Putin has also gambled that he can exploit political divisions as a multi-continent opportunity. He is likely pleased with the partisan deadlock in Washington over Nord Stream 2 and the fallout in Ukraine, and his ability to bend Germany to the point where Berlin at times looks closer to Moscow than Brussels or NATO.

Despite how we got here, the current Russia-Ukraine crisis should be an opportunity for political unity and bipartisan solutions in Washington. Historically, decisive U.S. action in Europe didn’t depend on multilateral consensus, but it did require a unified American polity. The same is true today.

The U.S must not only lead the transatlantic community in deterring Putin and returning Europe’s focus to energy security but also provide an enduring solution worthy of the special relationship bridging the Atlantic. What has changed is that now the U.S. is not only a military superpower that underpins NATO, but an energy superpower that can underpin future energy security. Americans should all agree that this is essential to U.S. interests in Europe, regardless of our political preferences.

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should engage in good-faith discussions to outline a path for the United States and other large gas-producing nations to deliver the energy independence from Russia that Europe desperately needs. This would demonstrate to Putin that he cannot exploit American political division and that the U.S. remains Europe’s most reliable partner on security and economic cooperation.

The Biden administration’s discussions with global leaders in natural gas production are a good first step but will have to contend with market fundamentals and limited spare capacity. These discussions can no longer be in the background but a declarative statement that the U.S. will leverage its leadership and energy dominance to forestall Russia’s grip on Germany.

But Germany must respond in kind and accept American conditions for such a solution to be more than ephemeral. In exchange for leading diplomatic efforts to once again rescue Germany, the U.S. should demand that Germany immediately deploy a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal capable of receiving volumes in the near-term, while also resuming plans for a large-scale terminal, oppose nuclear power deals by Russia and China throughout Europe, support natural gas project financing, as well as terminate Nord Stream 2. These actions shouldn’t be controversial or partisan because they are objectively necessary for European and German energy security.

America’s industrial and military power was once decisive and essential for the Allies in WWII. Now, it is the time for America to utilize its newfound energy leadership to rescue Europe from Putin’s suffocating grip, and Germany from itself. Nothing would alarm Putin more than unexpected bipartisan action.

After offering the U.S. solution, the president must relentlessly engage on several critical European security questions. How can the West restore NATO consensus around Russia’s territorial expansion and regional energy security? How can the U.S. better partner with the EU and Germany to insist on real-world energy solutions, even when consensus among European capitals yields sub-optimal outcomes? A necessity of modern life, energy security shouldn’t be a zero-sum game that our adversaries in Beijing and Moscow seek to exploit.

Samuel Buchan is an energy and foreign policy strategist who served on the National Economic Council and as senior adviser to the secretary of Energy.

Matthew Zais served on the National Security Council and as principal deputy assistant secretary for international affairs in the Department of Energy and is now a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Source: https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/594182-american-unity-is-key-to-a-europe-whole-and-free

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]]> Smaller European Nations Uneasy as Germany’s Scholz Plans to Meet Putin https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/smaller-european-nations-uneasy-as-germanys-scholz-plans-to-meet-putin/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=smaller-european-nations-uneasy-as-germanys-scholz-plans-to-meet-putin Wed, 12 Jan 2022 22:41:55 +0000 https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=41578 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to reset relations with Moscow and is planning a face-to-face meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin later this month. Senior German officials were already scheduled to get together with Russian counterparts in January in a … Read More

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]]> German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to reset relations with Moscow and is planning a face-to-face meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin later this month.

Senior German officials were already scheduled to get together with Russian counterparts in January in a bid to ease geopolitical tensions amid rising alarm that the Kremlin is planning a further military incursion into Ukraine.

According to a report Monday by Germany’s Bild newspaper, foreign policy adviser Jens Plotner has been discussing with the Kremlin a meeting between the German leader and Putin for more than two weeks. The paper, which has a reputation of breaking domestic German political stories well ahead of media rivals, reported that Scholz is seeking “a new start” in relations with Moscow and wants to focus on energy politics and Ukraine.

US-Russia talks

Senior U.S. and Russian officials are to meet in Geneva for talks set for January 9 and 10 to discuss Russia’s military build-up on its border with Ukraine, where it has deployed around 100,000 troops, according to Western and Ukrainian intelligence officials.

Western leaders and officials have already rejected as nonstarters Russian demands, including a halt to further NATO enlargement and a rollback of any alliance military presence in the former Soviet satellite states of Central Europe.

The Geneva talks, which are to be led on the American side by senior State Department officials, are slated to be followed by Russia-NATO council talks and a meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Western leaders have warned of severe consequences if the Kremlin decides to mount another attack on Ukraine in a repeat of 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and used armed proxies to seize a large part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, bordering Russia.

U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters Friday that he advised Putin when they spoke by phone a day earlier that the upcoming talks could only work if the Russian leader “de-escalated, not escalated, the situation” going forward. Biden said he also sought to make plain to Russia’s leader in his second conversation in a month with Putin that U.S. and European allies are ready to punish Russia with tough economic sanctions.

“I made it clear to President Putin that if he makes any more moves into Ukraine, we will have severe sanctions,” Biden said. “We will increase our presence in Europe with NATO allies.”

Kremlin officials, though, have doubled down on warnings to the West about making a “colossal mistake” that could have enormous ramifications for an already fraught U.S.-Russian relationship.

Unease among some European nations

But despite the tough talk from Washington, there is unease among smaller European nations who fear bigger Western powers may try to cut a deal with Moscow without their buy-in.

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö is demanding that all European nations, formal Western alliance members or not, be included in the security negotiations between Russia, the United States and NATO.

Niinistö has reiterated his country’s right to join NATO if it wants, a flat rejection of the Russian demand that NATO admits no new members.

“Finland’s room to maneuver and freedom of choice also include the possibility of military alignment and of applying for NATO membership, should we ourselves so decide,” Niinistö said in a strong New Year’s address.

He said Russia’s ultimatums “are in conflict with the European security order,” and he wants a significant role for the European Union in any negotiations to help express the security needs and views of smaller nations.

“In this situation, Europe cannot just listen in,” Niinistö said. “The sovereignty of several member states, also Sweden and Finland, has been challenged from outside the union. This makes the EU an involved party. The EU must not settle merely with the role of a technical coordinator of sanctions.”

Germany’s concerns

Scholz’s New Year’s address to Germans was milder, and while warning of a punishing Western response to any further Russian aggression toward Ukraine, he emphasized the importance of “constructive dialogue” with Russia.

The German chancellor has come under pressure from allies and members of his coalition government, including Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, leader of the country’s Green Party, to withhold any formal approval for Russian natural gas to be transported through the just-completed Nord Stream 2, an undersea pipeline linking Russia and Germany.

Central and eastern European countries criticized former Chancellor Angela Merkel for her support of the Nord Stream 2 project. They say the pipeline risks deepening European dependence on Russian gas. Last month, Poland’s prime minister publicly called on Scholz to oppose the startup of Nord Stream 2, warning that the pipeline could be used as a coercive economic weapon by Russia.

Aside from what tactics to employ, splits persist also among Western powers over assessments of Putin’s intentions. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has downplayed the risk of Russian military action, saying the Kremlin wants to explore diplomacy and is not preparing “for action.”

Some Italian officials say they fear talk of impending war could take on a life of its own, impacting and shaping the behavior of Russia and the United States. They also point to the draft security treaties Russia presented to the U.S. last week as indicating a willingness for further talks.

U.S. officials have been seeking to reassure Central European governments that their views will be fully taken into account. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Monday with the Bucharest Nine group of eastern flank NATO allies, according to Ned Price, State Department spokesperson.

Price said in a statement: “The Secretary and Foreign Ministers discussed Russia’s destabilizing military buildup along Ukraine’s border; the need for a united, ready, and resolute NATO stance for the collective defense of Allies; and transatlantic cooperation on issues of shared concern. The Secretary stressed the U.S. commitment to continued close consultation and coordination with all of our Transatlantic Allies and partners as we work toward de-escalation through deterrence, defense, and dialogue.”

The call participants included the foreign ministers of Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary.

On Monday, former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on Western powers to reject Russian security demands, saying the proposals from Putin aren’t serious.

Rasmussen, who served as secretary general from 2009 to 2014 and is a former Danish prime minister, said the Russian president had openly told him that he wanted to dismantle the Western security alliance. Writing for the Politico.eu news site, he said agreeing to “negotiate down the barrel of a gun” would only help Putin.

“When I met Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time as NATO secretary general, he opened our meeting by telling me he wanted to disband NATO. If NATO allies engage with Russia’s most recent proposals … they will be directly helping him move a step closer to achieving his goal,” he added.

Putin and Kremlin officials say they have no plan to invade Ukraine, but they have also warned they will take retaliatory steps, if their conditions aren’t met.

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/smaller-european-nations-uneasy-as-germany-scholz-plans-to-meet-putin/6379981.html

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]]> Russia stops delivery of gas to Europe via Poland https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/russia-stops-delivery-of-gas-to-europe-via-poland/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=russia-stops-delivery-of-gas-to-europe-via-poland Fri, 17 Dec 2021 19:53:06 +0000 https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=41337 Russia continues to tighten the gas noose around the neck of the European Union, stopping again its key export gas pipeline. Starting Friday, December 17, the Russian gas conglomerate Gazprom will stop gas delivery through the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which supplies … Read More

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]]> Russia continues to tighten the gas noose around the neck of the European Union, stopping again its key export gas pipeline.

Starting Friday, December 17, the Russian gas conglomerate Gazprom will stop gas delivery through the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which supplies consumers in Germany through Belarus and Poland.

The auction held on Thursday for the gas delivery for a day ahead ended in vain: Gazprom refused to book any transit capacity, Interfax reports.

During the previous two weeks, Yamal-Europe pipeline worked at a third of its capacity, delivering 31 million cubic meters per day. And in October Gazprom stopped the pipeline completely, switching it in reverse mode for four consecutive days.

Gazprom made the decision to turn off the valve again on the Belarusian route after the Federal Network Agency of Germany announced that the approval of Nord Stream 2 is unlikely to be made in the next six months, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the project was unsuitable for certification.

The gas market responded nervously to a new reduction in supplies from Russia, which are already a quarter below the winter norm, and by the end of the year may reach the minimum in 6 years (144 billion cubic meters).

The price of January gas futures on the TTF hub and on the ICE exchange jumped to $ 1714 per thousand cubic meters (145.98 euros per megawatt-hour), but by the close of trading it retreated to $ 1608.

Following gas, electricity is rapidly becoming more expensive: market prices for the year ahead have surpassed historical highs in Germany, France and the UK.

“Gas is becoming more expensive due to low reserves in storage facilities and tensions in relations with Russia. And given the fact that the cost of CO2 emission quotas has soared to historical records, Europe in the coming months can expect a full-fledged industrial downturn”, warns Francisco Blanche, a strategist at BofA Europe for commodity and derivatives markets.

The decision of the German regulator to postpone the certification of Nord Stream 2 for six months is political, said Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s permanent representative to the EU. “It’s a mixture of foreign policy, I would say general Western and domestic German,” he said.

According to Chizhov, the regulator took a wait-and-see approach during the transition of the government in Germany. “But now the coalition has been formed, and its approaches to Nord Stream 2 are clear,” said Chizhov.

Source: http://uawire.org/russia-stops-delivery-of-gas-to-europe-via-poland

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]]> This is a devastating blow https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/this-is-a-devastating-blow/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=this-is-a-devastating-blow Tue, 27 Jul 2021 01:21:04 +0000 http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=40229  

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]]> EU and Russia Clash Over Belarus, Poisoning Accusations https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/eu-and-russia-clash-over-belarus-poisoning-accusations/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eu-and-russia-clash-over-belarus-poisoning-accusations Thu, 03 Sep 2020 20:09:28 +0000 http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=35917 Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, left, listens to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during talks in Minsk on Thursday. (Alexander Astafyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) (CN) — The harsh view that the European Union is a weakling when it … Read More

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]]>
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, left, listens to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during talks in Minsk on Thursday. (Alexander Astafyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

(CN) — The harsh view that the European Union is a weakling when it comes to foreign affairs and standing up against the military powers of the world is being seriously tested as Russia exerts control over Belarus and dismisses claims that a prominent Russian opposition leader was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent.

On Thursday, Russia was seen flexing its muscles on both fronts. It sent Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and a cadre of other government ministers to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, in a show of support for the teetering regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The Kremlin also dismissed Germany’s findings that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent first concocted by Soviet scientists in the 1970s and believed to be in the possession of the Russian military in violation of chemical weapons treaties.

The EU now risks seeing Russia get its way despite the chorus of protests coming from European capitals against the authoritarian tactics deployed by Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“In foreign policy, the European Union is frankly hopelessly weak, slow and divided,” Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert who writes about Russian criminals and spies, said on his podcast.

Galeotti said the EU likes to see itself as a hub of economic power and a model of supranational liberal-democratic governance transcending the old order of zero-sum politics and a leader in establishing international laws, rules and standards.

But he said Russia discounts the EU “as a scam” built around unnatural supranational institutions without real power and sees the bloc as being on the brink of collapse due to internal differences and rivalries, the rise of nationalist movements along with anti-EU sentiment and the departure of Great Britain after the Brexit referendum.

“This is not power as they see it,” Galeotti said. “They feel pretty good about their million-man army compared to the EU” and its insistence on rules and laws.

“It sees none of the genuine signs of power in the EU,” he added. “The Kremlin sees power as based around will, discipline, economic and military and political strength that can be applied; speed and action. In those terms, the EU is nowhere, punching so far below its weight.”

Although Russia views the EU as a geopolitical weakling, it still poses a risk for Putin because the European model is alluring to so many people in Russia and neighboring Belarus, he said.


Belarusian opposition supporters light their smartphones as they gather at Independence Square in Minsk on Aug. 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

“There is a certain genteel, magnetic … force to the European Union that at some level the Kremlin understands and fears,” Galeotti said.

It’s in this context, then, that the uprising in Belarus and the alleged poisoning of Navalny can be seen as crucial events in the long-running conflict between the EU and Putin’s Russia.

This new chapter in the clash unexpectedly opened on Aug. 9, when mass pro-democracy demonstrations broke out in Belarus following accusations of a rigged presidential election. The protesters are pleading for the EU’s help in bringing down the 26-year rule of Lukashenko, a man often described as Europe’s last dictator.

The EU has imposed sanctions on Lukashenko and pledged to send $63 million to back pro-democracy efforts and support victims of the regime’s brutal crackdown on protests. European leaders also are calling for investigations into allegations of torture against protesters and for a new presidential election.

The crisis on the EU’s eastern doorstep deepened and became more multifaceted with the alleged poisoning on Aug. 20 of Navalny, a main opposition figure in Russia who enjoys the backing of the West. He fell ill during a flight to Moscow from Tomsk in Siberia; he was flown to Berlin after receiving treatment from Russian doctors who said he hadn’t been poisoned.

He remains in a medically induced coma in a Berlin hospital. His condition is not considered life threatening, though he may suffer long-term nerve damage, doctors say.

On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel lashed out against Russia at a news conference where she announced that laboratory tests by the German military found “beyond a doubt” that Navalny had been poisoned with Novichok in an effort “to silence him.”

This isn’t the first time Putin’s regime has been accused of using Novichok. In 2018, a former Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter allegedly were poisoned with the nerve agent in England.

Merkel called Navalny’s poisoning “attempted murder” and she demanded Moscow explain its position on the Navalny case. She also called for an international investigation into the alleged poisoning.

But it remains far from clear who was behind Navalny’s poisoning. Some experts see the hand of the Kremlin behind it because Navalny poses a threat to Putin with regional elections set for Sept. 13 and the mass protests in Belarus threatening to spark a similar wave of protests in Russia.

But many pundits, even among those in the West, remain unconvinced that the poisoning was ordered by the Kremlin and instead believe it may have been carried out by Navalny’s other enemies. In the past, Navalny has said he would be a bigger problem for the Kremlin as a corpse than a living person. Experts are questioning the Kremlin’s involvement because the attack did not kill him and they don’t think Moscow would have granted his transfer to Berlin if it knew Novichok was used.

“The list of people he’s annoyed is as long as the list of rich powerful Russians,” Galeotti said in a recent interview about Navaly. He doesn’t believe the Kremlin ordered the assassination attempt. But he said only someone who is very rich and powerful in Russia could have obtained Novichok.

British authorities claim Russia has a small stockpile of the nerve agent in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Russia denies it has any Novichok. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons may get involved in a probe. The agency confirmed in 2018 that Novichok had been used against the Skripals.

Navalny has risen to prominence as an anti-corruption investigator and blogger who criticizes Putin and his party, United Russia. Navalny accuses Putin and his political cronies of being “crooks and thieves.” He has revealed stunning corruption at the top levels of Russian society.

The 44-year-old political activist charges that he was poisoned while in prison last year. He previously was attacked in public too. Since entering politics, he has been arrested many times and was convicted of embezzlement in what he called a politically motivated prosecution. He was blocked from running against Putin in the 2018 presidential elections and he’s been barred from registering a political party.


Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny speaks to a crowd in Moscow last year. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

Politically, Navalny is hard to pin down but he has a history of courting far-right circles and expressing racist anti-Muslim ideas while supporting ethnic Russian nationalism. He advocates transparency in government and he has gained support beyond Moscow in Russia’s regions, where resentment against Moscow’s taxes and its rich elite has grown in recent years due to falling living standards, a lack of progress in fixing decrepit infrastructure and rampant corruption.

The question, though, remains what Germany and the EU will do to back up their anger against Russia. New sanctions are being considered, but the EU has already imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea in 2014. The EU is also turning to NATO and the U.S. for help.

By Thursday, calls were mounting for Germany to stop construction of a controversial gas pipeline from Russia, the Nord Stream 2. The pipeline is expected to double the amount of gas Germany already gets from Russia. Despite the finding that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, Merkel dismissed the possibility of ending Nord Stream 2, a position that drew rebukes.

“We must pursue hard politics, we must respond with the only language Putin understands – that is gas sales,” said Norbert Roettgen, a top German politician with Merkel’s conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, on German radio.

He said finishing the pipeline “would be the maximum confirmation and encouragement for Putin to continue this kind of politics.”

But it remains doubtful that Merkel will follow this course.

“Outrage could be part of a broader strategy if the goal is to prepare your electorate for unpopular action, like a war,” Wolfgang Munchau, a political analyst who runs Eurointelligence, said in a briefing note. “But when that part is missing, outrage turns into hypocrisy.”

Munchau said Putin took the risk of sanctions when he ordered the annexation of Crimea because he wanted to “fortify Russia’s wider zone of influence.”

“Such trade-offs are absent in German thinking,” Munchau said. “German foreign policy works on two separate levels: the level of the moral outrage over human rights violations … and the simultaneous pursuit of German trade interests.”

Munchau said Germany’s business interests outweigh its foreign policy strategy.

“Modern Germany has no tradition of defining strategic interests that go beyond exports,” he said, adding that Roettgen’s position on Nord Stream 2 “does not carry majority support in the Bundestag.”

He said Germany’s influence over foreign policy in the EU has grown since Britain left the bloc, but he said Germany must show it is willing to make hard decisions.

“If you are not ready to take a hit in the pursuit of a strategic interest, you are not a foreign policy actor,” he said.

In Belarus, meanwhile, Russia is getting its way too by backing Lukashenko’s crackdown on the opposition. In recent days, most of the leaders of a council set up to serve as the voice of the opposition have been arrested. Also, police are now arresting many protesters, journalists and critics, including famous television hosts. Opposition leaders charge that many people have disappeared too. At the same time, cracks are beginning to appear in the opposition with the announcement that a new party will be formed by an opposition leader.

Russia has said it will not meet with the opposition and it has pledged to send in military help to Lukashenko if the situation gets out of control.

Belarus and Russia have close ties and Moscow’s backing of Lukashenko likely will force Belarus to become even more closely tied into Russia. Already, more than half of Belarus’s imports come from Russia and about a third of its exports go to Russia.

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Source: https://www.courthousenews.com/eu-and-russia-clash-over-belarus-poisoning-accusations/

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]]> Behind Nord Stream 2: The Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline that fueled Trump’s anger at NATO meeting https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/behind-nord-stream-2-the-russia-to-germany-gas-pipeline-that-fueled-trumps-anger-at-nato-meeting/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=behind-nord-stream-2-the-russia-to-germany-gas-pipeline-that-fueled-trumps-anger-at-nato-meeting Thu, 12 Jul 2018 18:18:20 +0000 http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=6392 President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted a planned natural gas pipeline link between Russia and Germany. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has split European nations, with some saying it increases Europe’s dependence on Russia and poses national security threats. Germany … Read More

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  • President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted a planned natural gas pipeline link between Russia and Germany.
  • The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has split European nations, with some saying it increases Europe’s dependence on Russia and poses national security threats.
  • Germany relied on Russia for 50 percent to 75 percent of its natural gas imports in 2017.

    President Donald Trump may have just made Nord Stream 2 a household name.

    Ahead of a NATO meeting, the president blasted the German government on Wednesday for backing the new natural gas pipeline link from Russia to Germany.

    The president’s point is that the United States is shouldering much of the budget for NATO, which was designed to counter the former Soviet Union and still acts as a bulwark against Russian aggression. In that light, Trump said Germany’s support for the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline is “inappropriate.”

    He took his complaint to his Twitter account on Wednesday.

    Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump

    What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy? Why are there only 5 out of 29 countries that have met their commitment? The U.S. is paying for Europe’s protection, then loses billions on Trade. Must pay 2% of GDP IMMEDIATELY, not by 2025.

    In launching the fresh attack against Germany, Trump waded into a long-running debate about energy security that has split the European Union. Here’s a primer on the controversial Nord Stream 2 project.

    What is Nord Stream 2?

    Nord Stream 2 is a pipeline project slated to transport natural gas from eastern Russia to northern Germany, where it would link up with infrastructure that carries fuel to Western Europe. It would run 1,200 kilometers, mostly under the Baltic Sea along the existing Nord Stream pipeline — hence the name Nord Stream 2.

    The second line would double the system’s capacity to 110 billion cubic meters.Russian gas giant Gazprom is building Nord Stream 2. Five European companies, including Royal Dutch Shell and Wintershall, are shouldering half the cost of financing the project.

    Why is Nord Stream 2 controversial?

    Some European countries oppose Nord Stream 2, arguing that it increases Europe’s dependence on Russia and poses threats to their national security. The opposition comes primarily from the Baltic states and former Soviet satellite nations, including Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.They argue Europe should not be filling Moscow’s coffers after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and in light of its broader efforts to destabilize the European Union.Nord Stream 2 also reduces Europe’s reliance on Russian gas that runs through Ukraine’s pipeline system, opponents say. That makes it easier for the Kremlin to punish its Eastern European neighbors by cutting off gas supplies while minimizing damage to its lucrative markets in the broader EU.

    Where does the United States stand?

    President Barack Obama opposed Nord Stream 2 and President George W. Bush came out against the original Nord Stream prior to its completion in 2011. Like the central and eastern European countries, they worried it increased Russian influence over the Continent.That policy has carried over into the Trump administration. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan summed up the U.S. position during a trip to Kiev earlier this year:

    We advocate for a strong, independent, self-sufficient energy future for Ukraine. One that is not dependent on Russia and subject to being an instrument of Russian aggression. We are against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for that very reason, which would for the European continent undermine our goals of energy diversification and energy independence but at least as significantly it would undermine Ukraine.

    In May, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Diplomacy Sandra Oudkirk told reporters the United States could sanction Nord Stream 2, using a law passed in 2017 that targets Russian energy projects around the world.

    Does Germany need the supplies via Nord Stream?

    Germany is Europe’s biggest natural gas consumer, and its demand is expected to rise by about 1 percent over the next five years as it phases out its fleet of nuclear power plants by 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.Germany is heavily reliant on Russia for natural gas. Russia provided between 50 percent and 75 percent of Germany’s gas imports in 2017, according to Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistics arm. Germany turned to Russia for roughly half of its oil imports last year.Earlier this year, Ukraine’s Naftogaz claimed Gazprom could utilize spare capacity in the Ukrainian transit system to supply the 55 billion cubic meters of gas to Germany that it plans to ship through Nord Stream 2.In the longer term, Germany is trying to generate most of its power from renewable energy. It’s uncertain how large a role natural gas will play past 2050.

    • The post Behind Nord Stream 2: The Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline that fueled Trump’s anger at NATO meeting first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

    ]]>         Germany puts Germany first https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/germany-puts-germany-first/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=germany-puts-germany-first Tue, 26 Dec 2017 14:41:47 +0000 http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/?p=3381 German soldiers hold Germany’s national flag | Vano Shlamov/AFP via Getty Images Since the end of World War II, German statesmen from across the political spectrum have insisted that their nation has no national interests, only supranational ones. As founding … Read More

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    German soldiers hold Germany’s national flag | Vano Shlamov/AFP via Getty Images

    Since the end of World War II, German statesmen from across the political spectrum have insisted that their nation has no national interests, only supranational ones. As founding chancellor of the divided, postwar Federal Republic, Konrad Adenauer chose to rehabilitate his defeated country through the path of Westbindung, (literally “binding to the West”), subsuming it under European and transatlantic integration.

    Two decades later, the Ostpolitik of Social Democratic Chancellor Willy Brandt sought to reconcile Germany with the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) through trade and highly symbolic expressions of repentance, like his impromptu genuflection at the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

    In the waning days of the Cold War, as the prospect of reunification raised fears about a return of “the German problem,” Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the country’s longest-serving foreign minister and a member of its liberal Free Democratic party, reassured wary neighbors that, “The more European our foreign policy is, the more national it is.”

    To this day, German politicians and elites bend over backwards to portray their country’s foreign policy as the epitome of altruistic multilateralism. So sensitive are they to perceptions of national chauvinism that, in 2010, Germany’s president was forced to resign after making the perfectly reasonable point that his country might need to deploy troops overseas “to protect our interests such as ensuring free-trade routes or preventing regional instabilities, which are also certain to negatively impact our ability to safeguard trade, jobs and income.”

    Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel | Adam Berry/Getty Images

    American political leaders have long explained their country’s foreign policies as a form of enlightened self-interest. Their German counterparts have gone out of their way to portray themselves as guided by enlightened selflessness. And the election of U.S. President Donald Trump has provided Germans with ripe opportunities to contrast their cooperative, internationalist outlook with the president’s “America First” nationalism.

    In a barely-disguised attack on Trump’s worldview at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this year, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel condemned “national selfishness” and declared that “The motto ‘Our country first’ only leads to more national confrontations and less prosperity.” Gabriel repeated these criticisms at a conference in Berlin earlier this month, lamenting the U.S.’s “withdrawal under Trump from its role as a reliable guarantor of Western-influenced multilateralism.”

    Berlin’s paeans to multilateralism and reproaches to nationalism, however, mask a foreign policy that is often itself unilateral and nationalist. An example of such hypocrisy was unintentionally provided by Gabriel himself. Among a litany of American policies supposedly undermining the liberal international order, he included newly introduced U.S. sanctions on Moscow that may affect German gas pipelines to Russia. Such measures, Gabriel warned, “pose an existential threat to our own economic interests.”

    Gabriel was referring to the highly controversial Nord Stream 2, which transports gas directly from Russia to Germany bypassing Central and Eastern Europe, thereby enabling Moscow to further entrench its energy leverage over the Continent. (The first iteration of the pipeline, completed in 2011, was denouncedby Poland’s foreign minister as akin to the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact for the way in which it sacrificed Central and Eastern European concerns on the altar of German-Russian relations). “Nord Stream lies in Germany’s interests,” Gabriel often saidwhen he was Germany’s economics minister. But it doesn’t lie in Europe’s.

    Nord Stream is but the most blatant example of how German foreign policy forsakes its own Central and Eastern European EU and NATO allies to the benefit of Russia, an adversary that, with its seizure of Crimea, perpetrated the first armed annexation in Europe since Hitler.

    Rather than apply that historical experience into a tougher policy against today’s territorial revisionists in the Kremlin, German policymakers often do the opposite, citing their country’s fraught wartime past with the Soviet Union as reason to seek rapprochement with Russia — no matter how wantonly aggressive it behaves. Case in point: Gabriel called upon the EU to “initiate the first steps towards removing sanctions” on Russia pending a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, even though such a concession would fall far short of what’s mandated by the Minsk accords.

    This selective reading of history has real-world consequences. A recent Pew poll of publics in NATO countries found Germans were the least likely to support defending fellow allies against Russian attack, as mandated by Article 5 of the alliance’s charter (a key component of the “liberal world order” whose alleged destruction at Trump’s hands German elites constantly bemoan).

    Shrouding nationalism behind a façade of internationalist rhetoric has long been a feature of post-war German foreign policy. Practitioners of Cold War Ostpolitikeventually came to see the “stability” of Communist regimes as the ne plus ultra of West German foreign policy, shunting aside the people-powered demands for change rising from below. By advocating the withdrawal of American nuclear-tipped Pershing missiles from West German soil — a move that would have put its fellow European NATO allies at risk of Russian nuclear blackmail — the West German peace movement of the early 1980s was, as a Social Democratic academic later confessed, “national in the guise of anti-nuclear.”

    This pattern continues today. When NATO undertook exercises in Eastern Europe in summer 2016 to reassure members made anxious by Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, then German Foreign Minister (and current President) Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed Kremlin propaganda by labeling the maneuvers “saber-rattling and warmongering.”

    In its insouciance toward its security commitments, Germany is hardly more reliable than Trump, who frequently undermined NATO’s mutual defense clause before explicitly endorsing it in his speech at Warsaw. And Germany’s strategic confusion and lack of moral clarity transcends the current occupant of the White House; by 28 percent to 25 percent Germans prefer Russia as a partner to the United States, the country that liberated them from themselves and provided the conditions for their post-war economic boom and political stability.

    Germany’s paltry defense budget (only 1.2 percent of GDP, far short of the 2 percent recommended of all NATO members) and vastly under-equipped military further exemplify its national narrow-mindedness. As Europe’s most populous country and economic powerhouse, Germany should be contributing far more to the Continent’s collective defense. When Germany’s NATO allies intervened to protect innocent Libyans from the depredations of the Gaddafi regime, not only did Berlin sit out, it abstained on a vote at the United Nations Security Council authorizing the mission.

    Responding to criticism of their meager defense expenditure, Germans often self-effacingly claim that the last thing the Continent needs or wants is a Germany that’s once again militarily powerful. Some offering this excuse sincerely believe that Germany, because of its past, should never again be trusted with the use of military force; but many just wish to unburden themselves of international obligations and cynically cite eternal historical trauma to justify that desire.

    Today, the only people afraid of Germany are Germans. This opportunistic instrumentalization of history — whereby pacifism, not standing up to dictatorships, is the primary lesson gleaned from World War II — provides them with a convenient and moralistic alibi for shirking global responsibilities.

    Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with pursuing national interest — all countries do. What’s exceptional about Germany is the degree to which it claims not to.

    Given its strength and the particulars of its past, this pretense has been an understandable component of German foreign policy rhetoric; the country that instigated World War II, perpetrated the Holocaust, and, long before, worried neighbors by mere virtue of its size was always going to be confronted with inhibitions, traumas and limits on its sovereignty with which “normal” nations are unencumbered.

    But as demonstrated by the rise of the Alternative for Germany, the first far-right party to enter the Bundestag in decades, Germany is becoming more like a normal European country, warts and all. It’s time it stopped pretending otherwise.

    James Kirchick is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of “The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age” (2017).

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