Official says Germans want Russian gas, oppose US pressure

BERLIN, Dec 4 (PRIME) – The energy policy of Germans, who want to get Russian gas and develop relations with the state, is none of the U.S. business, head of the Bundestag’s committee for economy Klaus Ernst told PRIME in an interview released on Wednesday.

“So long as Russian gas is much cheaper and environmentally safer than the U.S. gas produced by fracking, Germans buy it… There is wide consensus, including in the German Bundestag that we want Russian gas and want to support relations with Russia,” Ernst said.

The Nord Stream-2 project envisages construction of two lines of a natural gas pipeline with an annual capacity of up to 55 billion cubic meters, running from the Russian shore to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Russian gas giant Gazprom is implementing the project together with Germany’s E.ON and BASF, Royal Dutch Shell, OMV, and France’s Engie. The length of the pipeline’s route exceeds 1,200 kilometers.

The U.S. call the pipeline a political project threatening Europe’s energy safety and offer its liquefied natural gas instead.

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