Denmark will be officially providing Russia’s giant gas company Gazprom the go-ahead today to lay a controversial pipeline through Danish waters in the Baltic Sea. The approval comes after several months of heavy diplomatic activity between Denmark and Russia, including a personal phone call from the Russian Premier Vladimir Putin to Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

”We have given our approval after evaluating all the environmental problems. We have found the project to be fully safe,” says Energy Agency Engineer Kirsten Lundt Eriksen.

The North Stream project, which is to lead gas from Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald on the German coast, has been strongly opposed by several eastern and central European countries, but now seems closer than ever to reality.

North Stream will enable Russia to cut off gas to its eastern neighbours while maintaining supplies to Western Europe. Disagreements with Ukraine in particular have given rise to temporary cut-offs in supplies in recent years.

Critics
Critics of the pipeline say that Russia will use its gas pipeline in the Baltic for strategic reasons.

””Yesterday it was tanks, today it’s oil and gas,” Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, the former head of Poland’s security service tells the New York Times, which adds that the Russian premier put pressure on the government in Copenhagen to approve the project in a recent telephone call to the Danish prime minister.

The prime minister’s office has confirmed that Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen recently received a telephone call from Premier Putin, but declined to say what the conversation was about. Løkke Rasmussen is due to go to Russia on an official visit in November, while the Russian president is due on a reciprocal visit next year.

DONG
Danish approval comes as Denmark’s largest energy provider DONG Energy has decided to double an already announced contract for gas supplies from Gazprom, which will be supplying an annual two billion cubic metres of gas to Denmark by 2012 at the latest.

Dong Energy, however, denies that Denmark will become dependent on Russian gas.

”This is not about dependency on Russia, but on not being dependent on only one source. We are currently 100 percent dependent on North Sea gas. We are thinking about the security of supply to Denmark and Sweden, both of whom currently get all their supplies from Denmark,” says DONG Spokesman Ulrik Frøhlke.

Sweden
Sweden is also currently deciding whether to approve North Stream, which has caused major debate in Stockholm. Russia’s original proposal was to establish a manned platform in Swedish waters, but after that element has been dropped, Sweden seems close to approval.

The deadline for protests against the pipeline is today, after which the Swedish government will handle complaints and decide on its position.

Security
Danish authorities have said that they do not have security issues with the pipeline as long as Russia asks permission before inspecting its pipeline in Danish waters.

But Copenhagen University Security Expert Assistant Professor Peter Viggo Jacobsen says the pipeline is without doubt part of Russia’s geo-political policy.

”Russia is doing what it can to be able to run as many pipelines as possible and deliver gas to Europe in order to be able to put pressure on us,” Jacobsen says.

”(The supplies) can be used as pressure when parties disagree and the gas can be stopped. But apart from that Russia also has an interest in earning more money. So there is both a commercial and geo-political interest. It’s a good card to have if you want to get something from the EU,” Jakobsen says.

Gazprom
According to Gazprom, which currently covers 28 percent of the EU’s gas requirement, North Stream is purely commercial, energy strategic and has nothing to do with politics.

North Stream Director Matthias Warnig in Germany tells the New York Times that the fears of Eastern Europe are unfounded and that Europe needs Russian gas.

”The Wall was brought down twenty years ago,” Warnig says.