While tensions seem to be slowly easing between Russia and the West, with the return of Russian units deployed near the Ukrainian border, “All this play that’s going on today is basically a negotiation on the Nord Stream 2”, this gas pipeline has become a stake in this Ukrainian crisis, assured Tuesday on franceinfo Antoine Arjakovsky, historian and director of research at the Collège des Bernardins. According to this Ukraine specialist, Ukraine’s possible candidacy for NATO is not “just a pretext used by Putin” to invade the country.
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Antoine Arjakovsky: All this game going on today about Ukraine is basically a negotiation on Nord Stream 2. That’s why these announcements came today, when Olaf Scholz is in Moscow.
Nord Stream 2 is the second gas pipeline that connects Russia to Germany and has not yet entered into service. The Westerners are also a little pressure?
It did not come into service because in May 2019 there was a directive from the European Commission explaining that it was not possible for the producer, the distributor and the one who manages the network to be the same institution, which is the case today for Nord Stream 2. So, since 2019, there has been an extremely important legal battle between, on the one hand, Gazprom and the company Nord Stream 2, which is a consortium, and on the other side, the German regulator and the European regulator. In reality, the bottom line is this legal battle currently taking place between the Germans, the European Commission and Russia to decide whether or not to authorize gas pipelines to deliver gas to Europe. And you have to be aware that the Poles but also the Ukrainians are against it because it produces a competitive bias. There is a situation that we are already seeing today with the 30% increase in gas prices over the past year, where the Russians completely control gas prices, which violates all competition rules in Europe.
“The first problem is the possible increase in the price of gas. The second problem is Europe’s energy security. That is the real issue of the discussions.”
Antoine Arjakovsky, historian and director of research at the Collège des Bernardinsat franceinfo
In the end, is that the crux of the problem and not Ukraine’s possible candidacy for NATO?
This is the pretext used by Putin but everyone knows that NATO is a defensive alliance. On the other hand, there has been no NATO threat to Russia for years. And thirdly, in any case, since 2008 NATO has promised Ukraine to integrate its organization, but since 2008 things have not progressed. The heart of the problem is not there, even if we must of course discuss the future of Ukraine’s security, since the West, during the Budapest memorandum in 1994, guaranteed the security, the intangibility of Ukraine’s borders in exchange for its denuclearization. Something has to be done anyway for Ukraine’s security. Things have accelerated to the point of massing troops like never before in Europe, 150,000 soldiers according to the American secret services, that has never happened since 1945 in Europe. So the heart of the problem is not at all that question, it is first of all the economic question. Does Europe want to be dependent in terms of hydrocarbons from Russia? Does Europe want to finance the Russian state budget too? Or does Europe want to have some possibility of diversifying in terms of energy and above all of avoiding excessive dependence on the Russian state?