Germany risks ‘complete loss of credibility’ – former top diplomat

There’s a lot of confusion and “unilateral verbal threats” around the Nord Stream 2 project, according to the former foreign minister of Austria, Karin Kneissl. She has described the whole situation as “very ambiguous.”

Talking to RT, she pointed to an agreement signed between the United States and Germany earlier this year. The treaty says that if there’s “some sort of militarization of the Ukraine conflict,” then the German government could consider sanctions. However, Kneissel said that “nobody has a real definition of what is such a situation when the Germans or the US government would use sanctions. There’s a lot of unilateral verbal threats around and the situation is very ambiguous.”

As for the Nord Stream 2 project, “contracts and treaties have to be kept, have to be preserved.”

The former FM said if Western nations “now start to impede the consortium of companies to make this pipeline operational… then that would yield tremendous problems and have a tremendous impact on the German economy in general, because it would mean a complete loss of credibility.” 

The ironic aspect of the situation, according to Kneissl, is that North American gas and oil goes to Asia, and does not reach the European market for the simple reason that Asian clients pay more.

“Again, it’s more of a political game, and it’s a risky game… it really has to do with the fundamental laws of market economy – supply and demand,” she said.

Talking about the European energy situation as a whole, she said “it’s a completely homemade crisis of mismanagement of energy supply.” Clean energy plays an important role, but the government has to provide for energy security, Kneissl said, noting “that’s what we pay taxes for and electricity bills for.”

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