German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his government would “reassess” the certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which hasn’t begun operating yet.
The $11 billion, Russian-owned natural gas pipeline snakes westward from Russia to northeastern Germany for more than 700 miles under the Baltic Sea. The pipeline was launched in 2015 and follows a similar route to another pipeline, Nord Stream 1, which was completed in 2011.
Owned by Gazprom, a Russian state-controlled company, Nord Stream 2 was completed last year and has the capacity to handle 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year once it becomes operational.
The decision is a significant move for the German government, which had long resisted pulling the plug on the project despite pressure from the United States and some European countries to do so.
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Scholz said that the government had decided to “reassess” the certification of the pipeline, which hasn’t begun operating yet, in light of the latest developments.
Germany meets about a quarter of its energy needs with natural gas, a share that will increase in the coming years as the country switches off its last three nuclear power plants and phases out the use of coal. About half of the natural gas used in Germany comes from Russia.
