Gazprom Germania, a Russian energy trading, storage, and transmission company, was abandoned by Gazprom Russia on Friday. It will now be transferred to Germany’s regulator in order to ensure energy security, Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced Monday.
Habeck stated that all voting rights in the company would be transferred to the Bundesnetzagentur.
Habeck stated that the order of trust administration was necessary to ensure public security and order, as well as supply security. This step is obligatory.
Habeck stated that supply security was being assured at the moment in a crisis in energy relations between Germany and Russia following Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
The Bundesnetzagentur will take control of the company until Sept. 30, 2022. It will have the right to fire executives, to hire new staff, and to ask management how they want to proceed.
Klaus Mueller, the head of the Bundesnetzagentur stated in a statement that “Our goal is to run Gazprom Germania for the interests of Germany, Europe.”
Gazprom did not provide any details or explanations for its decision to end its participation in Gazprom Germania, nor all of its assets. These assets include subsidiaries in Britain and Switzerland, as well as the Czech Republic.
Gazprom has been under the scrutiny of European Union regulators since months. These allegations, which Gazprom denied, were that it was holding back gas that could be released at lower prices.
Sources claimed that EU antitrust authorities raided its offices in Germany last week.
According to the Economy Ministry, this was done in order to prevent Gazprom Germania being acquired by JSC Palmary or Gazprom Export Business Services LLC.
The ministry did not say who was behind these companies. This implied that an acquisition was illegal because the investors were not from the EU and were about to operate critical infrastructure.
Christian Lindner, German Finance Minister, rejected Monday’s EU embargo against Russian gas imports. This is in response to increasing civilian deaths in Ukraine and the pressure on the bloc for sanctions against Russia’s energy sector.
Lindner stated that “we are dealing with criminal war” before he spoke with his EU colleagues in Brussels. It is obvious that we must immediately end all economic ties with Russia. We need to plan for tough sanctions. However, gas cannot be replaced in the short-term. We could inflict greater damage on ourselves than they would.
