Russia expects Nord Stream 2 certification to resume soon

BERLIN, Feb 11 (PRIME) -- Moscow expects certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to resume very soon because all the necessary documentation has been submitted to the German regulator, Russian ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechayev told PRIME on Friday.

“We expect the certification procedure of the Nord Stream 2 to resume very soon and to be professional and non-politicized. The operator company Nord Stream 2 AG has created a subsidiary in the German jurisdiction – Gas for Europe GmbH, and submitted the necessary documentation to the Federal Network Agency of Germany,” he said.

Moscow sees no more unsubstantiated political reasons for the European authorities to drag their feet on certification. The pipeline was built having all the E.U. regulations and laws in mind, but Europe has repeatedly changed the initially coordinated rules, including amendments to the E.U. Gas Directive and artificial introduction of politics to the project, Nechayev added.

On Wednesday, Russian ambassador to the E.U. Vladimir Chizhov told PRIME he expected the European Commission, which is to consider the certification documents after the German regulator, to prolong the time of consideration to the maximum possible four months. This means that the final decision on certification would come no earlier than in July, Chizhov said.

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