At issue is a new gas pipeline project, which Germany halted on Tuesday in retaliation for Russia's decision to recognize two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, shortly before it invaded and brought Europe to the brink of a major war.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the landfall site for the line, Nord Stream 2, which bypasses the former Soviet Republic. The United States long argued the line would weaken Ukraine; Germany and Russia insisted the project was purely commercial. Nonetheless, in 2019 Washington set sanctions on some companies and individuals who were helping to build it, maintaining the line is a tool for Russia to support aggression against Ukraine.
Last January, the regional premier, Manuela Schwesig, took action to support the Russian project. At her initiative, the state parliament voted to set up a special foundation whose charter said it could acquire, manage, own, provide or let land, tools and machines to help the completion of the pipeline.
"We believe that it is right to build the pipeline," Schwesig told reporters in January 2021. Advocating for the pipeline in the state parliament last January, Schwesig said the US sanctions were self-interested. "Nobody who is working on building the pipeline is doing anything wrong," she said. "The ones doing something wrong are those who are trying to stop the pipeline."
Nord Stream 2 would double the amount of gas Russia can pump directly to Germany, its biggest customer for gas, make Germany and Europe less vulnerable to supply interruptions caused by disputes between Russia and Ukraine, and bring economic benefits to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a relatively deprived region that used to be in the German Democratic Republic.
But this year as Russia stepped up pressure on Ukraine, questions mounted around the Foundation, called Klima-und Umweltschutz MV (Climate and Environment Protection Foundation). It would not reveal who was running its sanctions-busting operation beyond saying that the person was appointed by Nord Stream 2 AG, a company owned by Gazprom PAO, which is fully controlled by the Russian state.
The state auditor, the Court of Auditors, told Reuters on February 09, 2022 it was concerned that Mecklenburg-Vorpommern had largely given up control over the Foundation's assets. This meant there was no guarantee that the Foundation would always work in the public interest, said Sebastian Jahn, the court's spokesman, in a telephone interview.
The Foundation said on Wednesday it would stop helping the pipeline project, but declined to say exactly what it had done to aid it so far. In an account of its first year on its website, it said that to complete the pipeline, "the illegal threats of United States had to be countered with a wide range of measures, which for obvious reasons cannot be made the subject of public explanation."
Public records show it purchased a ship which entered the Baltic last July and which a US State Department report to Congress last November said had engaged in pipe-laying activities, on Nord Stream 2 or another sanctioned project.
"We did what is necessary, the pipeline is practically completed," Foundation Chairman Erwin Sellering told German broadcaster NDR on Wednesday, adding that this involved helping small and medium-sized companies do their work. "We can say we fulfilled our mandate," he added.
As Russia continues to pressure Ukraine, other questions are mounting about the links between the pipeline, Germany's ruling Social Democrat Party (SPD), and Moscow. The regional premier Schwesig is, like Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a member of the SPD, which traditionally advocates rapprochement with Russia.
Gerhard Schroeder, a former Chancellor who has described himself as Putin's personal friend. One of his last acts in office in 2005 was to sign the deal creating the Nord Stream 2 project. Soon after, he became chairman of the company behind it – the first of several directorial positions he has taken at Russian energy companies.
In 2019, Scholz rejected the US sanctions as interference in Germany's affairs. On Tuesday, after Russia formally recognized the two breakaway regions, he decided to halt certification of the pipeline. But some analysts say the damage to Germany is already done.
"Russia has succeeded in using the personal interests of prominent German political figures against Germany," said Marcel Dirsus, Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University.
"All this is doubly dangerous for Germany: It allows an adversarial foreign power to influence decision-making and it raises questions about Germany's reliability among the country's allies."
