Brussels, 31/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - The controversial German-Russian gas pipeline project under the Baltic, Nordstream, was the subject of a lively debate on Tuesday 29 January, in a public hearing held by the European Parliament's petitions committee. The impact of the project on the Baltic ecosystem has for stirred up opposition for more than a year among environmental NGOs and also several Member States on the Baltic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden (EUROPE 9362 and 9571). The Nordstream pipeline has, however, been identified as a project or European interests and its defenders stress its strategic importance in securing the EU's energy supply.
Opening the debate, the President of the EP petitions committee, Marcin Libicki (UEN, Poland) first pondered the environmental consequences of the underwater route of the installation and said that an overground gas pipeline would be “a better solution”. Several petitioners against the project, who were invited to present their point of view, including the vice-mayor of the city of Poznan, Krzysztof M¹czkowski, demanded that the Nordstream consortium review the route of the pipeline and opt for an overground solution. Pointing out that the Baltic is an enclosed sea, Mr M¹czkowski stressed the fragility of its ecosystem, highlighting in particular the risks for marine life and the risks associated with chemical weapons and the live mines dating from the second world war which are present on the sea bed of the Baltic. He also criticised the plans to runt he pipeline through protected areas. Lithuanian Radvilé Mrokunaité denounced the lack of an impact assessment on the marine ecosystem for the project and bemoaned the fact that no other options were examined.
The European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas stressed the need for “painstaking ecological expertise in the project”. “The project must correspond to the imperatives of ecological security”, he said. Mr Dimas, who appealed for no decision to be taken without examining the repercussions of the project on the Baltic environment, observed that the Member States are linked to the Environmental Impact Assessment Convention in a Trans-boundary Context, known as the Espoo Convention. This regional convention, which was signed under the auspices of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 1991 in Espoo (Finland) and entered into force in 1997, lays down the precise elaboration of environmental impact assessments in close cooperation with other states. It also stipulates states' general obligation to notify and consult each other on all major projects being considered which are likely to have a considerable, harmful trans-boundary effect on the environment. Mr Dimas promised, in the context of the project, that the Commission would ensure that international environmental agreements ratified by the EU were respected by the Member States. “If this should not be the case, the Commission will not hesitate to intervene” he added. While reaffirming his support for what he believes is a “project of European interest”, as it should improve the EU's energy security, his Energy counterpart Andris Piebalgs agreed that the project's impact on the environment should be “evaluated fully”. “It is probably the most important issue at the moment”, he said.
A representative of the Nordstream consortium, Dirk von Ameln, promised that the pipeline would be constructed “with respect for the conventions and in the greatest possible transparency”. Mr von Ameln also underlined the project's contribution to the climate, arguing that electricity production from gas emits 40% less greenhouse gas than from coal. Representing the Helsinki Commission, the body which manages the Helsinki Convention on the protection of the marine environment of the Baltic sea, Eugeniusz Andrulewicz said that the number of impact analyses carried out thus far was insufficient. Mr Andrulewicz also supported the search for a terrestrial route for the pipeline.
Beyond the environmental aspects, the strategic dimension of the Nordstream project was also the subject of debate. Mr Libicki stressed the “symbolic” nature of the Nordstream project. Since the consortium responsible for its construction, composed of energy companies Gazprom (51%) from Russia, BASF and E.ON (20% each) from Germany and Gasunie (9%) from the Netherlands, was put in place, the project has encountered lively opposition from the Baltic states and Poland, who are unhappy at being sidestepped by the pipeline. A minister in the former Polish government, Jaroslav Kaczinski, had no hesitation in calling the project a new Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact, in reference to the Russian-German non-aggression pact of 1939 to which the Baltic states and Poland subsequently fell victim. According to Henrik Lax (ALDE, Finland), “Nordstream is at the origin of a problem even more serious than the environmental issue, the crisis of confidence between the EU and Russia”. In the view of Rebecca Harms (Greens, Germany), this crisis of confidence exists “for strategic reasons, because the populations think that this pipeline is the result of a direct contract between Germany and Russia”. Vytautas Landsbergis (EPP-ED, Lithuania) sees “the destruction of the European values of solidarity and political union” in the Russo-German project. (E.H.)