Former Danish FM calls to turn Nord Stream 2 into 'Pyrrhic Victory' for Moscow

Former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen of the liberal-conservative party Venstre has urged Western countries to use all the means at their disposal and find a way to turn the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into a "Pyrrhic victory for Russia".

The former foreign minister admitted that Nord Stream 2 is "almost finished" despite long delays, including the Danish environmental approval which took a long time, and the US sanctions that "almost completely stopped the project".

Ellemann-Jensen also decried the Biden administration's handling of the pipeline, calling it a "genuflection" to President Putin. "Had his predecessor Donald Trump done so, this columnist, alongside many others, would have described it as yet more proof that Trump was in Putin's pocket", he admitted.

"There is an important point to be made: it must not become a carte blanche for Putin and Gazprom to divide and conquer in European energy policy", Ellemann-Jensen wrote in an opinion piece for the newspaper Berlingske. "Europeans should be able to turn off the tap when they need to put pressure on Russia", Sputnik cited him as saying.

In order to reduce "the threat of dependence on Russian gas", as he put it, he mused that the construction of a gas pipeline from Norway to Poland should be completed as soon as possible.

"In several places in Denmark, you can see large stocks of pipes, which are waiting for a resolution in a case that where suddenly some protected mice appear to be bothered by the pipeline", Ellemann-Jensen wrote, citing the Danish authorities' rejection of the 210-kilometre $2.6 billion Baltic Pipe due to protected habitats of the hazel doormouse and the birch mouse. The pipeline, intended to be put into operation in 2022, was to link Danish and Polish gas consumers with Norwegian gas fields in the North Sea.

The ex-Danish foreign minister additionally suggested purchasing American liquefied gas as an alternative and concluded that a common European energy policy could also put "pressure" on Moscow in the gas market, urging Europe to "think creatively".