A Pipeline Too Far? EU Law Obstacles to Nordstream 2

摘要

It is doubtful that Russian President Putin could have imagined the legal and political controversy occasioned by the announcement of the Nordstream 2 pipeline proposal at the St Petersburg Forum in June 2015. It is likely that the Russian Government, Gazprom and its western commercial allies assumed that, although there would be some controversy, after some debate and concessions, the pipeline would pass relatively smoothly through EU and Member State regulatory processes. This, at first sight, would have not seemed an unreasonable view to take as Nordstream 1, after some regulatory and political debate at EU and Member State level, passed relatively serenely through EU and Member State regulatory regimes.