The chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a statement, along with counterparts from several European parliaments, opposing the recent agreement between Washington and Germany to allow completion of the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline, as reported by Reuters.
"We consider Nord Stream 2 a geopolitical project geared towards expanding Russia's influence on Europe by dominating the energy market," Democratic Senator Bob Menendez said in the joint statement with counterparts from Estonia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Britain and Lithuania.
President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel last month reached an agreement that allows the pipeline that will take Russian gas to Germany to proceed.
Ukraine has long opposed the nearly completed $11 billion project because it will give Moscow the theoretical option to stop routing gas via Ukraine, which would deprive Kyiv of billions of dollars in lucrative transit fees and, it says, imperil its security.
