08/06/2021 (Agence Europe) – “The physical completion of the pipeline was, I think, a fait accompli”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, on Monday 7 June, in an address to the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project linking Russia to Germany. Justifying the recent US decision to waive sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG - the Gazprom subsidiary in charge of the project - and its CEO, Matthias Warnig, from the US sanctions list “on national security grounds”, Mr Blinken said that such sanctions would have made “no difference” to the physical completion of the pipeline. However, he said that this waiver “can be revoked”. In addition, the Secretary of State welcomed the recent start of negotiations between Washington and Berlin “to make sure that the transit fees that Ukraine, at some point in the future, may lose as a result of this pipeline being able to go around Ukraine, that they’re made whole”. (DG)