Warsaw has lost all claims under the first "Nord Stream", which for almost six years has been supplying gas to European consumers. Now the Polish authorities have prepared a conclusion on the legal status of Nord Stream-2, an alternative to the official lawyers of the European Commission

Following the results of the first day of the EU summit in Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that the initiatives of the opponents of Nord Stream 2 to issue a mandate for the European Commission to hold talks with Russia on the special legal status for this project failed. "One can simply say that there is no unanimous support between the EU countries for granting the mandate of the European Commission to negotiate with Russia on this issue. We came to the conclusion that the EU Council should continue work on this issue, but I do not expect a compromise in the coming months. But the European Commission continues to believe that it should receive such a mandate for negotiations with Russia, "Juncker said. According to him, only Poland and the former Baltic republics of the Soviet Union spoke out against Germany and Austria. The rest, apparently, abstained. Reason triumphed.

Frankly, the attempts of some officials of the European Commission and certain EU countries to ban or halt Nord Stream 2 are nothing but an indulgent smile. They so obviously contradict the very idea of ​​a law-based state, not to mention the legal standard (which Brussels considers itself), obligatory to imitate all the others, that it does not even require special proof.

Here the energy block of the European Commission with perseverance worthy of other application, declares that "Nord Stream -2" must comply with the rules of the so-called Third Energy Package - antitrust laws that regulate the management of gas transmission systems delivering gas to the EU. Everyone understands that the pipeline, which starts in Russia - a sovereign state that is not part of the European Union, is running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea (use is regulated by the law of the sea and environmental conventions) and ends right after leaving the water in Germany, does not transport gas in the zone of operation of the internal market. The legal department of the European Commission itself, at least twice, wrote that the project does not fall under the project under intra-European legislation. No, the officials of the European Commission, who have long been baptized politicians, although they were not chosen, as is customary in democratic systems, still wriggle with snakes and come up with new moves.

And now the agency Bloomberg reports with reference to unnamed sources that the European Commission is preparing amendments to the legislation that will extend the rules of the third package to the gas pipelines that supply fuel to the EU from third countries. A little later it turns out where the legs grow. "Vedomosti" publish a document that contains a legal alternative to the official lawyers of the European Commission on the legal status of "Nord Stream-2". Authorship is attributed to the Poles, long-time specialists on alternative interpretations of history, and now also legal norms. The Polish government, which is the most ardent and even frenzied critic of the Nord Stream-2 and, in general, any constructive cooperation between Russia and Europe in the energy sector, suggests that the European Commission extend the "third package" to the Baltic gas pipeline, as it will pass through the territorial waters of Germany and will land on its territory. And at the same time and on the gas pipelines in the territory of a third country, that is, Russia. Then, just before the EU summit, Prime Minister Beata Shidlo said that she brought the issue of "Nord Stream 2" to the agenda as one of the two main problems of the existence of the EU, along with immigration.

Warsaw, however, is not the first to fight with "windmills" - fashionable in Europe (but not in Poland, where coal-fired generation runs it) by windmills, but with non-existent problems. They lost all claims within the first "Nord Stream", which has been working for almost 6 years and is delivering gas to European consumers. And, in truth, it is Poland that is the record holder for the European Union in the number of claims and claims by the European Commission on the inconsistency of national legislation with the norms of the Union. And she was seriously threatened with the introduction of sanctions from Brussels.

Unfortunately, along the path of politicking, the country with a more established experience of democracy, such as Denmark, decided to go and the parliament is going to retroactively change the procedure for issuing permits for the construction of a pipe in its territorial waters. Earlier and now it was provided by the environmental department on the basis of considerations of compliance with the norms of environmental legislation, and in case of adoption of amendments - the conclusion will become the prerogative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that is, it will be accepted for political reasons. We can say that this is an internal matter of Copenhagen - how to regulate activities in territorial waters, but from the point of view of the fundamental legal principle of the EU - legal certainty - this looks, at least, unscrupulous. Especially if you remember that it was the Danish side that requested the transfer of part of the route from the economic zone to the territorial waters within the Northern Stream-1 for reasons of greater environmental security. This is sad, first of all, from the standpoint of EU legal standards, but for the future of the project is not dangerous.