Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymański has said that the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany should not be built because it will harm the European Union and Ukraine.

In an article posted on the politico.eu website, Szymański said that the planned gas link “is a bad deal for the European Union and a bad deal for Ukraine, and it should not go ahead.”

Once Nord Stream 2 goes online in 2019 and Russian gas giant Gazprom "has the technical capacity to serve its Western European customers without the Ukrainian transmission system, any deal of the sort will be based solely on Russia’s good will, which is hardly an ironclad guarantee,” Szymański said.

He added that supporting Ukrainian independence and maintaining the Ukrainian gas transit route after 2019 is crucial to the stability of Europe.

Cutting off the Ukrainian transit route would deal a harsh blow to the Ukrainian budget and, even more importantly, Kiev’s geopolitical situation would become much more vulnerable, according to Szymański, who is Poland's deputy foreign minister for European affairs.

“Even if the pipeline would appear to benefit Germany and Russia in the short term, Europe as a whole will eventually lose, and the ultimate winner will turn out to be Russia,” he said in his article.

If built, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will supply around 55 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, circumventing Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine.

Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine all oppose the project.

The US State Department spokeswoman said in March that the US government opposed Nord Stream 2 as the project would undermine Europe’s energy security and stability.

Heather Nauert said at a department press briefing that companies engaged in the construction and financing of the pipeline “could expose themselves to sanctions” under US law.

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Source: politico.eu, IAR