Please read this piece by my colleague Paul Roderick Gregory in The Hill
Germany postures itself as the conscience of Europe. It takes in floods of refugees and scolds those who do not. It claims to guard European unity against the nation-state and ridicules the United States for electing a real estate developer as president.
But Germany, the self-declared paragon of European values, is also Germany Inc., the land of the “Putin Versteher” (Understander). Germany Inc. is poised to give the Kremlin its greatest “pipeline politics” victory.
The $10 billion Nord Stream 2 (NS2) pipeline has the necessary German approvals. Once in operation, NS2 will make Germany Europe’s hub of cheap Russian gas.
Germany’s Putin Versteher echoed Putin’s claim that NS2 is “undoubtedly absolutely free from politics … a purely commercial project.” This claim is not true. NS2 is designed to split Europe in two, while imposing considerable economic losses on Ukraine, whose failure is a top Putin priority.
