Who is behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, affected by four leaks in a few days? For the spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, it is up to the American president to “respond to the question”. Maria Zakharova published on the social network Telegram, Wednesday September 28, the video of a press conference of the tenant of the White House. Dated February 7, the excerpt shows a serious and hostile Joe Biden, about the future of this pipeline. “If Russia invades Ukraine, there will be no more Nord Stream 2. We will end it” (“Bring an end to it”in English), declared the American president.
Can we deduce from this that the Head of State threatened to physically destroy the gas pipeline, as Russian diplomacy suggests? In France, this is what Florian Philippot affirms, when he shares the same video on Twitteron September 27, writing that the President “Biden announced [que les Etats-Unis] would destroy Nord Stream 2″. Franceinfo interviewed several specialists in the geopolitics of energy to resituate the context of Joe Biden’s statement.
The United States has reasons to want to prevent the operation of the gas pipeline linking Russia to Germany. The first world power has largely expressed them in the past. “American policy in relation to Nord Stream 2 has always been an opposition policy”, summarizes Nicolas Mazzucchi, director of research at the Center for Strategic Studies of the Navy (CESM). The installation of this pipeline, work on which began in 2018, but which was never put into service, displeases the American administration, because it amplifies “the addiction [des Européens] to Russian gas”, explains the researcher. With a flow of almost 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year, Nord Stream 2, if activated, would have been added to a network of Russian gas pipelines able to meet “to three quarters of European gas needs”believes the geopolitical scientist.
The United States had warned that this dependence “would one day cost Europe dearly, geopolitically and economically. In retrospect, this turned out to be unfortunately true”, notes the research director. In September, Russia exerted pressure by suspending gas deliveries to Germany until the sanctions imposed by the EU in response to the invasion of Ukraine were not lifted.
Reducing Europeans’ access to Russian gas would also give the United States hope “an economic benefit” by the increase of “their own exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the continent”says Sophie Marineau, doctoral student in the history of international relations at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), in an article for The Conversation site.
However, believes Nicolas Mazzucchi, we must not necessarily understand Joe Biden’s words in a sense “coercive or military”. Since 2017, American opposition to Nord Stream 2 has primarily taken the form of sanctions, such as the freezing of assets and the revocation of visas against “companies involved in the construction of the gas pipeline”explains Anna Creti, professor of economics at Paris-Dauphine University. “A policy initiated under the Trump administration, then taken up by Joe Biden”, specifies the energy specialist. The goal: “slow down construction work” by targeting the companies in charge of installing the infrastructures or the ports accommodating the construction vessels. As a result of these sanctions, the construction of the gas pipeline was thus delayed by almost a year.
When, in February 2022, President Biden declares that he wants to end Nord Stream 2, the threat is not necessarily “physical”, agrees Nicolas Mazzucchi. It’s first “a lever of diplomatic pressure”, says the director of the CESM. It is then a question of “Dissuade Russia from invading Ukraine, saying, ‘If you go too far on the Ukrainian issue, there will be pressure to stop the pipeline project from ever happening.’ That’s what happened.”
It was indeed a European sanction that put a stop to the Nord Stream 2 project. In response to Moscow’s recognition of the independence of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Germany suspended certification on February 22 of the gas pipeline. Without it, “Nord Stream 2 cannot be commissioned”, then announced German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The invasion of Ukraine “killed” the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, believes Olivier Appert, advisor to the Energy and Climate Center at Ifri. Because of the conflict, “it was quite obvious that it was impossible for the Germans to authorize the opening of the gas pipeline”. February 23, Jen Psakispokesperson for the White House, thus announces without ambiguity that Nord Stream 2 is “death at the bottom of the sea”.
The same day, Joe Biden reiterates his desire to “stop Nord Stream 2, if Russia invades Ukraine”. The American president specifies this time his action plan: “a coordinated effort with Germany” which is to stop the “pipeline certification” and to punish “the company Nord Stream 2 AG (which manages the gas pipeline) and its directors”. No mention then of any physical threat against the pipeline, nor even of the verb “destroy”, as Florian Philippot evokes.
To date, the origin of the leaks observed has not been established. “It is therefore necessary to remain cautious about [la détermination] of the causes of the accident” which hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, recognizes Nicolas Mazzucchi. For the director of the CESM, it should however be kept in mind that the explosions affected gas pipelines “that didn’t work” and that the commissioning of Nord Stream 2 is no longer on the agenda and therefore no longer a problem for the United States.