Russia’s controversial Nord Stream consortium has laid off 140 employees, a week after chancellor Olaf Scholz froze certification of its undersea gas pipeline in response to Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Mr Scholz warned of “very, very dramatic” times ahead for Ukraine with images and reports of death and destruction “only a taste of what is to come”.
“We have to concentrate on preventing this from continuing, that is the centre of our efforts,” said Mr Scholz in Berlin alongside his Luxembourg colleague Xavier Bettel.
As they held talks in Berlin, the Nord Stream AG consortium, based in the central Swiss town of Zug, beat a radical corporate retreat.
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“We have learned that all the staff of Nord Stream 2 [ . . .] in Zug, more than 140 people, have been made redundant,” said Swiss economics minister Guy Parmelin.
Russia’s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom holds a majority stake in Nord Stream while Dutch and French energy companies NV Nederlandse Gasunie and ENGIE hold 9 per cent each.
Holding 15 per cent each are German energy companies Eon and Wintershall.
On Tuesday, Wintershall said it was “studying carefully the legal implications” of the invasion which had “shaken to its foundations” its joint partnerships with Russia.
Possible insolvency
Media reports on Tuesday suggested Nord Stream AG is to file for insolvency in response to news that Washington will sanction firms who do business with the consortium.
Last week, Mr Scholz, Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) government chief, said the €10 billion pipeline, completed last September, would not go into operation after he suspended its certification indefinitely.
Meanwhile his SPD mentor and former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, a Russian lobbyist who sits on the supervisory boards of Nord Stream, Roseneft – and, from June, Gazprom – is coming under attack from all sides.
After years of pro-Russian remarks, Mr Schröder accused Ukraine last month of “sabre-rattling” in Russia’s direction. His post-invasion claim that “mistakes had been made on both sides” has prompted the SPD in Heidelberg to file for his expulsion from the party. Among their reasons for ejecting their former leader: his “direct responsibility for industry crucial to the [Russian] war effort”.
Mr Schröder’s long-time office manager has quit his services, according to a report on Tuesday, while Bundesliga football club Borussia Dortmund has asked Mr Schröder to leave its board before the club “takes appropriate steps”. Rival team Schlake 04 has dismissed Russia’s Gazprom as chief sponsor after 15 years.
Russian opera stars
With seven hours’ notice on Tuesday, Russian star soprano Anna Netrebko cancelled an evening concert at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall – for days showing Ukraine’s blue and yellow national colours.
“After careful consideration, I have made the extremely difficult decision to withdraw from concert life for the time being,” she said. “It’s not the right time for me to perform and make music.”
The 50-year-old singer has come under pressure after she issued a statement condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, without criticising Mr Putin.
“It’s not fair to force artists to express their political opinions in public and denounce their homeland,” said Netrebko, who celebrated her last birthday in the Kremlin and has travelled to the separatist Donetsk region.
Also on Tuesday, Russian star conductor Valery Gergiev, a prominent supporter of Mr Putin, was dismissed as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic. Munich mayor Dieter Reiter had ordered the conductor to back, by Monday, a motion condemning Mr Putin’s “brutal war of aggression” or be fired.
Milan’s Scala, the Lucerne festival and the philharmonic orchestras of Vienna and Rotterdam have also severed ties with Gergiev, the latter dating back to 1988.
