Because of the attack on Ukraine, the German government is putting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on hold. In response, Russia is restricting the flow of gas through Nord Stream 1. While FDP Vice Kubicki would bow to pressure from Moscow, the majority in Germany is against it.
According to a Forsa survey commissioned by RTL/ntv, a majority of people in Germany are against using the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. According to this, 53 percent of respondents believe that the pipeline should still not be used to deliver gas from Russia. 39 percent of those surveyed believe that Germany should allow Nord Stream 2 to be commissioned given the gas shortage. A majority of East Germans (60 percent) are in favor of using the pipeline, while West Germans are mostly against it (56 percent).
Most advocates of commissioning are found among the supporters of the AfD (93 percent), the least among the Greens (13 percent) and the SPD (28 percent). Union voters vote 35 percent for an end to the sanction, 38 percent of FDP voters are in favor of activating the pipeline. For the survey, 1000 people were interviewed on August 19th. The error tolerance is 3 percent.
The commissioning of the completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline was put on hold by the German government in view of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Russia currently only supplies around 20 percent of the possible quantity via Nord Stream 1. Moscow blames technical reasons and Western sanctions. The Federal Government considers these reasons to be false.
The proposal by Deputy FDP Chairman Wolfgang Kubicki to meet Russian demands and put the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline into operation met with cross-party criticism. Leading FDP politicians also kept their distance. A spokeswoman for FDP leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in Berlin that Lindner considered Kubicki's proposal "wrong and absurd".
Among other things, Kubicki had demanded in the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND) that Nord Stream 2 be put into operation. "We should open Nord Stream 2 as soon as possible to fill our gas storage for the winter," he demanded. Kubicki argued that it was "no more immoral" to get Russian gas this way than through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
Criticism also came from Kyiv. "The demands of some German politicians to start Nord Stream 2 for a short time and to close it later are completely irrational," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. "It's like a drug addiction when someone says, 'Just one last time!'" criticized Kuleba.
