Višnja Starešina: Nord Stream 2 in Global Balance with the Three Seas Initiative

Following last week’s final visit of Angela Merkel to Washington in her capacity as German Chancellor, news was released about the American-German agreement on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. This marked the conclusion of the largest American-German dispute of the past decades. Biden’s America has given the green light to the Russian-German pipeline project, which runs under the Baltic Sea, and which was strongly opposed by both the previous Trump administration and, before it, the Obama administration.

Has the Biden administration capitulated to Germany and Russia? Namely, the entire American opposition to Nord Stream 2 was based on security premises. First, that the pipeline, which directly (under the Baltic Sea) connects Russia and Germany, excludes Ukraine from the European energy map and completely leaves it to Russian influence. Second, that the Russian-German pipeline, which bypasses the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Poland, brings those countries into a particular energy dependence on Russia, and then into a security threat from it. And finally: that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline brings all of Europe into dependence on Russian gas supply and poses a security threat to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe (including Croatia, of course) by exposing them to (too) much Russian influence.

Gas Blackmail of Ukraine

In any case, the Nord Stream 2 project has been recognized as an attempt by Germany, in agreement with Russia, to achieve geopolitical dominance over Eastern and Central Europe, and it has caused concern and apprehension in the more geopolitically aware leaderships of those countries, as well as in Washington.

Does this mean that with this American-German agreement, whereby the U.S. gives the green light to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and abandons sanctions against companies participating in its realization, America is fundamentally changing its previous policy towards Europe, especially towards its eastern part, leaving it to German-Russian agreements?

At first glance, one could conclude that. Namely, although the tone of this American-German agreement prevails in protecting against Russian abuse of gas as a weapon, or as a means to achieve dominance over Eastern European countries, particularly against the ‘gas’ blackmail of Ukraine, it is noticeable that there is not a single strict mechanism for the implementation of this agreement. The agreement (which, as I write this, has not yet been officially published) states that the U.S. will sanction such Russian attempts, that Ukraine will be compensated for losses in gas transport (about three billion dollars), that Germany will invest about fifty million dollars in Ukrainian infrastructure for green energy production, that it will support projects of the Three Seas Initiative… But geopolitical agreements can never be defined by a single clause that resolves all disputes. They are built deeply and are never completed.

Obstructions by Plenković and Milanović

Therefore, the guarantee for the implementation of this American-German agreement on Nord Stream 2 is not any explicit clause, but rather – the Three Seas Initiative – with a network of LNG terminals through which alternative gas supply for Eastern and Central Europe is ensured. This is the strongest safeguard against the abuse of Nord Stream 2. And when the entire story about the disputes surrounding Nord Stream 2 is placed in the perspective of building a new energy, and even security map of Europe, then the current American-German agreement is a logical end to one phase in that process.

The Baltic-Adriatic Initiative, which was officially launched by former Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and Polish President Andrzej Duda, and which then evolved into the Three Seas Initiative, based on a network of LNG terminals, is actually the American response to Russian-German energy dominance, and with it, political dominance. The main purpose of the American sanctions was to slow down Nord Stream 2 until an alternative LNG network was established. It has never been realistic that the U.S. would permanently stop Nord Stream 2. Even now, its goal is not to prevent the export of Russian gas to Europe, but to prevent a Russian gas monopoly, or geopolitical dominance over Europe. It is not in America’s interest to make Russia an enemy, but to keep it as a weaker competitor.

In the next phase of the Three Seas Initiative, the infrastructure around that network of LNG terminals will connect Central and Eastern Europe, which has stagnated since the Cold War. This will be a space for investment and development in the next phase of the process. Five years ago, Croatia was the locomotive of that process. Today, Plenković and Milanović, after persistently obstructing LNG on Krk and devaluing the Three Seas Initiative, have been pushed into the last carriage. And that is the current status of Croatia in that process.