Germany Should Lift Anti-Russia Sanctions As US Punishes Nord Stream 2 - AfD Lawmaker

The German government should remove sanctions that have been placed on Russia as a reply to the Trump administration, which has punitively levied sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, Heiko Hessenkemper, a member of the Bundestag Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th June, 2020) The German government should remove sanctions that have been placed on Russia as a reply to the Trump administration, which has punitively levied sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, Heiko Hessenkemper, a member of the Bundestag Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told Sputnik.

On Thursday, several US senators introduced a new bill that would levy additional sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The bill would see companies that provide certification, insurance, and port facilities for pipe-laying vessels working on Nord Stream 2 face punitive measures.

"This outrageous interference and economic imperialism on the part of the Americans, who want to force more expensive and ecologically much more precarious gas supplies on Europeans, should be answered by calling in the US ambassador, for example, and making the impossibility of this behavior clear, thereby also creating a foreign policy scandal," the lawmaker stated.

Berlin has numerous ways to respond to Washington's decision to levy sanctions on the project, Hessenkemper stated, adding that removing sanctions on Russia would be one potential option.

"In addition, appropriate pinpricks should be taken, such as reclaiming the 1,500 tons of German gold still stored in the US, or lifting economic sanctions against Russia in order to speed up Russia's economic reconstruction, especially now at the end of the coronavirus crisis, and similar actions," the lawmaker remarked.

Despite Washington's attempts to disrupt the project, Gazprom and the five European firms working on Nord Stream 2's completion should be able to finish the pipeline, as there is a strong desire among all parties to ensure the completion of the project, Hessenkemper added.

"But I think that the firm will to finish the gas pipeline will also lead to solutions that will make American activities come to nothing," the lawmaker stated.

Germany, along with the rest of the European Union, levied sanctions on Russia in 2014 over the situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

Berlin has slammed Washington for applying sanctions on Nord Stream 2, a planned 745-mile-long twin pipeline that will carry nearly 2 trillion cubic feet of gas per year upon completion.