The German President Frank Walter Steinmeierhas admitted his “error” of assessment, for having defended the need to carry out the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipelinein his time as External subjects minister.
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“It was clearly a mistake,” Steinmeier said, according to presidential sources quoted by German public television ARD, amid the critics poured from Ukraine and Poland against his management and that of the Former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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Steinmeier was Chancellery Minister under the Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, between 1999 and 2005, and then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the conservative Merkel, between 2005 and 2009 and then between 2013 and 2017, before becoming president by consensus of the country.
In his first term, then Chancellor Schröder and his political ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, signed the agreement for the construction of the first gas pipeline, which became operational in 2011.
It was a few months before Merkel came to power in 2005, after which Schröder took over the Nord-Stream board, a post he continues to hold despite current pressure to break with Putin.
In 2011, after the first gas pipeline came into operation, it was agreed to build the Nord Stream 2, to increase the direct transport of Russian gas to Germany, through the Baltic.
That second project remained standing despite the annexation of Crimea, in 2014, by decision of Merkel and her partners at the time, the Steinmeier Social Democrats.
The current chancellor, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, finally suspended his license for its start-up the day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, amid strong pressure and criticism of the too lukewarm position regarding Moscow.
Germany has categorically rejected the possibility of embargoing Russia’s oil, gas and coal imports because of its heavy dependence on Moscow for energy.
Ukraine has criticized that position and the president himself, Volodymyr Selensky, yesterday challenged Merkel to “visit Bucha” to see on the ground the atrocities committed by Russian troops in that city.
The Polish government has also urged Berlin to toughen sanctions against Russia and to stop importing Russian gas, oil and coal.
EFE
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