Germany no longer feels like an orphan of the “irrecoverable” Nord Stream

Berlin last September announced the launch of a fifth floating regasification terminal. And although energy company E.On has said it can repair gas pipelines destroyed by the Sept. 27, 2022 undersea explosion, it appears no longer to be needed.

Berlin. The latest update on the Nord Stream pipeline arrived yesterday from Düsseldorf where, speaking to the Rheinische Post, the energy company E.On said it could repair the pipelines of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines destroyed by the submarine explosion of 27 September 2022. Talk of the double direct Russia-Germany pipeline lying on the bottom of the Baltic Sea came up again at the beginning of the week when the New York Times, citing US intelligence sources, attributed the sabotage to an unidentified pro-Ukrainian group. The news is of interest to the Germans: on the one hand because the Federal Attorney General’s Office has been investigating the incident since October (but similar investigations have also been launched in Sweden and Denmark) on the other because the social democratic premier of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Manuela Schwesig, has returned to the eye of the storm for having spent a little too much on the completion of Nord Stream 2. The doubling of the second double pipeline, it should be remembered, was ready for testing and inauguration in early 2022 and only l The increase in tensions between Moscow (which was amassing troops) and Kyiv prompted the White House to put pressure on Berlin to stop the project. Nord Stream 2 actually exploded before it was put into operation.