French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune on Monday said France had urged Germany to cancel the Nord Stream II project, especially after the recent mass arrests of supporters of detained Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The US and some European countries such as Poland have strongly criticized the construction of the pipeline, saying it would increase Germany and the European Union’s dependence on Russia for critical gas supplies. France has been less vocal in its opposition but has raised concerns.
“We always say that we have the biggest doubts on this project in this context,” Beaune told France Inter radio.
Beaune was asked if Paris wanted Berlin to cancel the project: “Indeed, we’ve said this,” he replied.
The call came after Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on opposition led by Navalny, who was arrested in mid-January and faces a trial that could land him in detention for years.
“The sanctions have been put in place, we can do that, but we have to be clear, it will not be enough. The Nord Stream 2 option is being considered,” said Beaune, admitting: “This is a decision for Germany, because the pipeline is in Germany.”
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
The face of the Russian opposition
The lawyer-turned-political campaigner is among Russia’s most prominent opposition figures to President Vladimir Putin. Navalny rose to prominence in 2008, when his blog exposing malpractices in Russian politics and among large state-owned companies came to public attention. The disclosures published on his blog even led to his resignation, which is rare in Russian politics.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Disputed parliamentary elections
In 2011 Navalny was arrested for the first time. He ended up spending 15 days in prison for his role at a rally outside the State Duma in Moscow. Putin’s recent parliamentary election victory for United Russia has been undermined by instances of cramming, reported by demonstrators on social media. After his release, Navalny promised to continue the protest movement.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Second prison term
After being re-elected as president in 2012, Putin ordered the Russian Investigative Committee to launch a criminal investigation into Navalny’s past. The following year, the campaigner was charged and sentenced again, this time for five years, on charges of embezzlement in the city of Kirov. However, he was released the following day pending confirmation from a higher court. The sentence was later suspended.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
The Anti-Kremlin platform grew
Despite being involved in legal trouble, Navalny was allowed to run in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election. His second finish behind Putin’s ally, Sergei Sobyanin, was seen as a tremendous success and raised the Russian opposition movement.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Navalny took to social media
His anti-Kremlin rhetoric led to Navalny being banned from appearing on Russian state television. It forced him to convey his political message through his social media and blogs. His talent for public speaking, his use of flashy language, and the humorous taunts of Putin and his loyalists mobilized a large following.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
President’s ambition
In December 2016, the opposition leader announced the official start of his campaign to run for president of Russia in March 2018. However, repeated allegations of corruption, which his supporters said were politically motivated, ultimately barred him from running for public office.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Convicted of corruption
In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated Navalny’s right to a fair trial in the Kirov case. Although Russia’s Supreme Court overturned the five-year sentence, the verdict was sent back to the Kirov court. In 2017, the court again sentenced Navalny to a five year suspension.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Moscow’s biggest protest in 6 years
In February 2017, anti-corruption protests in dozens of Russian cities led to the arrest of more than 1,000 demonstrators, including Navalny. The protests, believed to be the largest in the Russian capital since 2012, were sparked by a report published by Navalny linking Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to a multibillion-euro property empire. Navalny was released 15 days later.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Being physically assaulted
Navalny was attacked and hospitalized in April 2017 after being hit in the eye with a green chemical dye. The attack permanently damaged his right cornea. Navalny accused Russian authorities of stopping him from seeking medical treatment abroad over the embezzlement charges against him. He was eventually allowed by the Kremlin human rights council to travel to Spain for eye surgery.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Multiple arrests
In 2018, Navalny was jailed for 30 days. After being released in September, he faced another 20 days of duty. In April 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Russia violated Navalny’s rights by holding him under house arrest for most of 2014 during Kirov’s embezzlement case.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Suspected poisoning
In July 2019, just weeks after being released from his 10-day prison sentence, Navalny was again jailed for 30 days for violating Russia’s strict protest law. Opposition leaders accuse Russia of poisoning him with allergic agents while in prison.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Raids and frozen assets
Using YouTube and social media, Navalny had garnered millions of followers by the end of December 2019. Then the police raided the headquarters of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (above), detaining him in the process. Its staff said officials wanted to confiscate their technology equipment. Just months later, in March, Navalny reported that the bank accounts of his and his family members had been frozen.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Airplane – and coma
On August 20, a spokesman for Navalny announced that the activist was seriously ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing, and Navalny was rushed to a hospital in Russia’s Omsk and then evacuated to the Charite Berlin clinic (above). Doctor says he is in coma. Navalny’s associates claimed he had been poisoned and pointed to previous attacks on the activist.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Back from the brink
Navalny was coma free less than three weeks later and was said to be responsive. Not long after, she posted on Instagram, saying she’s slowly regaining her strength after weeks of just being “technically alive”. The German government says laboratories in France and Sweden have both confirmed that Navalny had been poisoned by Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Smoking gun?
Several months later, Navalny released a recording of a phone call he made to a man he said was a member of the Russian Federal Security Service, whose headquarters is pictured above. The accused agent said he was not directly involved in poisoning Navalny, but was deeply involved with efforts to clear Novichok’s traces. Moscow rejects the footage as fake.
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Who is Alexei Navalny?
Return, arrest, and trial
Navalny had promised to return to Russia and he did, despite warnings that he would be arrested. He was detained by police shortly after arriving in Moscow. The dissident, seen here at the passport check point, said he was “afraid of nothing.” He was sentenced to 30 days in prison at the trial that was held the following day.
Author: David Martin
The European Parliament also demanded that the construction of the pipeline be postponed immediately.
Berlin demands Navalny’s release however, on Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel spokeswoman Martina Fietz said the government had not changed its mind on Nord Stream 2. Fietz said she had “no new updates” to the project, which Merkel strongly supports. “The government has not changed its basic position,” he told reporters.
Work continues on Nord Stream 2 in December after being detained for nearly a year on American sanctions.
Can the cancellation backfire?
Green party politician Jürgen Trittin, a former German environment minister, told DW he believed the pipeline cancellation would be in vain. Russian pipeline developers will receive legal compensation from Germany while still being able to export their gas in other ways.
“I have never been a friend of this pipe, but stopping it at this point would probably have a very high price, without achieving any real effect,” he said. “However, Russia has many opportunities to export its gas via other routes.”
Meanwhile, Renate Alt, a Bundestag lawmaker with Germany’s pro-business Free Democrats, said he believed a moratorium should be imposed on the construction of the project.
“It is now important that the construction halt, the moratorium, be enforced until the Russian side moves, as far as clarification of Alexei Navalny’s poisoning is concerned,” Alt told DW.
“So far it has been unclear and as long as these protests have stopped so brutally … we must not allow the pipeline to continue building.”
Russian energy giant Gazprom – a major investor in the project – said Nord Stream 2 is now 94% complete.
Nord Stream 2 consists of two pipes, each about 1,230 kilometers (765 miles) long, and is expected to deliver tens of billions of cubic meters of natural gas per year from Russia to Germany.
rc / msh (AFP, dpa)
