(Montreal) The decision to send a turbine for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline was the best way to show that Vladimir Putin is using energy as a weapon and that the West is united in its support for Ukraine, pleaded Wednesday the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly.
Posted at 12:17 p.m.
Updated at 12:55 p.m.
The head of Canadian diplomacy underlined that the whole world now sees through the game of the strongman of the Kremlin, since the turbine of discord has been in Germany for days, and the Russian energy company does not take possession of it .
“The very idea behind our thinking was certainly not to give any form of pretext to President Putin, who is trying to use this turbine issue as a way to create dissension between allies,” she said. argued.
“It was the best way to maintain unity among the allies,” also declared Minister Joly.
At her side, her guest from Germany, Annalena Baerbock, nodded, and she took the opportunity to thank Canada for circumventing the sanctions and allowing an exception for the sending of six turbines as part of their regular maintenance. .
Fearing an energy crisis, Berlin had pressured Ottawa to obtain this compromise. The turbine, which was being repaired at Siemens’ Montreal facilities, was shipped to Germany a little over two weeks ago, and it is still there.
The owner and operator of the 1,200 km gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany, Gazprom, has also reduced natural gas deliveries to Germany by 20%. The Russian company cites technical problems, which Berlin considers a pretext for political games.
But if Russia does not use it, why not revoke this permit? “It’s a commercial decision between Siemens and Gazprom. The Government of Canada is not involved in this decision,” replied Minister Joly.
When the Trudeau government announced that it was granting Siemens the right to circumvent the sanctions imposed on Vladimir Putin’s regime, the Minister of Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, explained that the permit granted by Canada was “revocable and limited time [de deux ans] “.
Minister Joly and her German counterpart held their press conference before taking part in a luncheon discussion organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal entitled “Germany and Canada: Meeting the challenges specific to our era, together”.
Turbines needed despite nuclear power
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday paved the way for an extension of the operating life of the last three nuclear power plants in operation in Germany. The country had decided to leave it at the end of the year.
This does not mean meeting the energy needs of the German population, said Minister Baerbock. Germany is hungry for gas because electricity generated by nuclear energy cannot heat homes, she said.
A committee on Thursday
On Thursday, Minister Joly will appear before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, which is examining the privilege granted by Ottawa. She will be accompanied by Minister Wilkinson.
They will be followed by the ambassadors of Germany, Ukraine and the European Union. Kyiv’s head of mission in Ottawa, Yulia Kovaliv, strongly denounced the circumvention of sanctions, while her German counterpart, Sabine Sparwasser, welcomed it.
The harshest condemnation, however, came from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“It’s not just about turbines for the Nord Stream gas pipeline,” he stormed in a video. We are talking about common rules. If a terrorist regime can extract such an exception from the sanctions, what exceptions will it demand the next day, the day after? »
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was caught between a rock and a hard place, pleaded that this decision had been very difficult to make.
“Sanctions are there to punish [Vladimir] Putin and his friends, and not to punish our allies and the people of Europe […] Germany and other countries in Europe face an energy crisis if they do not have the capacity to have this natural gas,” he said.