He accuses the German Executive of not acting “enough” to resolve the Ukrainian conflict, while the Social Democratic minister poses before the turbine necessary for the supply of gas
Bad day chose the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to “pose” in front of the mysterious turbine that, apparently, the Russian giant Gazprom needs for the Nord Stream gas pipeline to supply the contracted gas to Germany.
Scholz’s photos in front of that engine, at the Siemens Energy factory in Mühlheim, in the west of the country, were doomed to add to the mess around the turbine. Moscow had spent weeks arguing that the supply cut for ten days, first, and the reduction of these to 20% of its capacity, when it resumed them, were due to maintenance tasks and the failure of the turbine. Berlin assured that he was on his way, from Canada to Russia, although without clarifying his whereabouts.
Suddenly, Scholz summoned the media in Mülheim, at 8:30 a.m. on a Wednesday in August. The good news was that, finally, the existence of the turbine was shown. “It is ready to be transported at any time. They just have to ask us to do it,” Scholz explained. In the foreign minister’s version, there is no technical reason to justify the reduction of Russian supplies. And the transport of the turbine, conveniently reviewed in Canada, has the relevant authorizations to reach its destination. There are no sanctions that make it impossible, he said.
Scholz’s mediatic appointment with the turbine should put an end, in the chancellor’s opinion, to weeks of secrecy regarding the whereabouts of the turbine. According to Berlin, the blockade is the responsibility of Moscow. As if the situation was not confusing enough, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, friend and political ally of Vladimir Putin and architect in 2005 of the agreement by which Nord Stream was born, competed with Scholz in terms of media impact.
Having just returned from his second mission in Moscow, Schröder assured in an interview with the weekly ‘Stern’ that Putin is willing to negotiate a solution to the conflict with Ukraine. Neither the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – to which both Scholz and the chancellor belong – nor the current government want to know anything about the mediation efforts carried out by the former chief executive in Moscow.
Since that exclusive interview, Schröder reproached the current government for not doing “enough” to “solve” the Ukrainian conflict. And he added that the solution to the lack of Russian gas supplies lies in Nord Stream 2. That is, the second section of the gas pipeline whose commissioning was suspended by Scholz in February as a result of Moscow’s recognition of the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donbas. .
Nord Stream, the key to Germany’s current energy dependency on Russia, was born in 2005, a few months before Schröder’s removal from power. The first gas pipeline began to be founded in 2011, the year in which it was decided –already with the conservative Angela Merkel in the chancellery– to build the second section or Nord Stream 2.
Ties with Putin
After leaving the chancellery, Schröder went on to hold positions on the supervisory boards of Kremlin-controlled companies, as well as Nord Stream. He kept them until a few months ago, when he resigned amid strong pressure from the SPD and the Scholz government. There was also the danger of being included in the sanctions against Moscow.
For German social democracy, Schröder is more than an uncomfortable former chancellor. There are 17 expulsion demands from different levels of the party against whom he was president of the formation -from 1999 to 2003- and head of the Government -from 1998 and 2005-. The SPD will analyze them predictably next Monday. “What do I have to apologize for?” asked the defiant Schröder throughout that interview. The former foreign minister sees no reason to break with Putin, stating that he already condemned the war in Ukraine “at the time” and maintains that the bridges of dialogue with Moscow should not be broken.
Scholz, meanwhile, was again confronted with the question that hovers over the current tripartite between Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals: the advisability of postponing the nuclear blackout. “It may make sense,” he said, about a possible extension of the service of the last three nuclear plants in the country.
According to the planned schedule, these should be deactivated by the end of this year. The Greens refuse to postpone it, although they no longer rule it out categorically. The Liberals are betting on keeping them online and perhaps reactivating some of those that went offline last year, which is technically possible.
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