Thread by @bopanc

Germany Calls for European Firewall Against U.S. Sanctions. The U.S. push against ⁦@NordStream2⁩ is prompting some officials to call for a coordinated approach to protect interests of #EU members. With ⁦@laurnorman⁩ via ⁦@WSJ⁩ wsj.com/articles/germa…

Russ­ian en­ergy min­is­ter Alexan­der No­vak said that only 160 km of the #NordStream2 pipe­line re­mained to be com­pleted, work that would be fin­ished within months by us­ing Russ­ian ships wsj.com/articles/germa…

“Eu­rope needs new in­stru­ments to be able to de­fend it­self from li­cen­tious ex­trater­ri­to-r­ial sanc­tions,” wrote @NielsAnnen , Ger­many’s deputy for­eign min­is­ter, in a tweet @WSJ wsj.com/articles/germa…

The Ger­man for­eign of­fice’s di­rec­tor gen­eral in charge of eco­nomic af­fairs @GERonEconomy wrote in a tweet that the sanc­tions were an “at­tempt to use co­er­cive mea­sures for sell­ing LNG to Eu­rope.” @WSJ wsj.com/articles/germa…

Build­ing a shield against U.S. sanc­tions is dif­fi­cult be­cause of the size of the U.S. econ­omy, the role of the dol­lar in in­ternational trans­ac­tions, and the fact that the U.S. has con­trol over much of the world’s fi­nan­cial plumb­ing. @WSJ wsj.com/articles/germa…

One official spoke of sep­a­rate financial in­frastructure that would al­low Eu­ropean com­pa­nies to es­cape the scope of U.S. sanc­tions. The banks in­volved would have to be based in ju­ris­dic­tions out of the U.S.’s reach, such as China or Rus­sia wsj.com/articles/germa…

“Wash­ing­ton is treat­ing the EU as an ad­ver­sary. It is deal­ing the same way with Mex­ico, Canada, and with al­lies in Asia. This pol­icy will pro­voke counter-re­ac­tions across the world,” this of­fi­cial said. @WSJ wsj.com/articles/germa…

“What if the EU par­lia­ment would sanc­tion the Key­stone pipe­line on en­vi­ron­men­tal grounds,” a se­nior Ger­man diplo­mat asked in ref­er­ence to the oil pipe­line con­nect­ing Canada and the U.S. that has been op­posed by en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists @WSJ wsj.com/articles/germa…

German think tank @DIW_Berlin calls for 'climate tariffs' in response to US sanctions on #NordStream2 dw.com/en/german-thin…

European Commission President @vonderleyen Criticizes U.S. Nord Stream Sanctions rferl.org/a/european-com…