German Economy Minister Plans to Reduce Energy Dependence on Russia

BERLIN (Sputnik) - Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck said on Friday that he plans to support the diversity of energy supply and to reduce Germany’s dependence on one country's energy supply.

"Indeed, that’s why my goal is to provide a diversity of supply and to reduce dependence on one country", Habeck told Der Spiegel.

The minister, who is a member of the Greens party, went on to say that renewable energy sources are expected to reduce overall dependence on natural gas which will have an impact on the global energy market.

"We are also supporting green hydrogen production and import. Thus, energy politics has not only an ecological but also a geopolitical dimension", Haneck added.

He also echoed his party's stance that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a geopolitical project since there will be no need for Ukraine as a transit state for natural gas. He told the newspaper that if the German regulator decides not to greenlight gas supply through the pipeline, Germany should not pay any compensation to Russia.

A road sign directs traffic towards the Nord Stream 2 gas line landfall facility entrance in Lubmin, north eastern Germany, on September 7, 2020.

© AFP 2023 / ODD ANDERSEN

On 18 January Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on his German colleagues to abandon attempts to politicise the project.

Last November, German authorities suspended Nord Stream 2 certification over a procedural technicality.

Nord Stream 2 is a 766-mile-long pipeline, running under the Baltic Sea and connecting Russian Ust-Luga and German Greifswald. The three-year-long construction project was eventually completed on September 10, 2021. The pipeline is now filled with technical gas and ready for use. However, Germany still needs to create a subsidiary to operate the German part of the pipeline. The decision on Nord Stream 2 approval is expected in the middle of 2022.