Germany says it will
retaliate against the United States if new sanctions proposed by the US
Senate against Russia damage German companies.
European
and German firms are heavily involved in the Nord Stream 2 project which
is about to take Russian gas across the Baltic to Europe through a
pipeline.
Germany’s largest oil and gas producer Wintershall and
its energy trading firm Uniper are among the European countries building
the pipeline along with Royal Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV and France’s
Engie.
The US Senate voted on Thursday to impose new sanctions on
Russia and force President Donald Trump to get Congress approval before
easing any existing sanctions on Russia.
If passed in the House of
Representatives and signed into law by Trump, the bill would allow new
sanctions on Russian mining, metals, shipping and railways and other
sectors.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said
on Friday it was "strange" that the sanctions could also trigger
penalties against European companies, adding "that must not happen."
German
Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said Berlin would have to think about
counter-measures if Trump backed the plan. "If he does, we'll have to
consider what we are going to do against it" she told Reuters.
Ties
between Washington and Berlin are already strained after Trump flayed
Germany for running a large trade deficit with his country. The new US
president has also alienated other European partners after deciding to
quit the landmark Paris agreement on combating greenhouse gas emissions.
German
Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern
said in a joint statement on Thursday that US sanctions should not be
“threatening German, Austrian, and other European enterprises.”
Austrian
Chancellor Christian Kern (R) and German Minister of Foreign Affairs
Sigmar Gabriel deliver a press statement after a meeting in Vienna on
February 27, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
Trump has put
the US on a collision course with Europe after the two sides cooperated
under former president Barack Obama to impose sanctions on Russia over
the Ukraine crisis.
Zypries said the joint approach of Europe and
the United States on Russia and sanctions has been undermined and
abandoned under Trump.
France also underlined the difficulties
that Washington’s “extraterritorial legislation spark” while the
European Commission urged the US to “coordinate with its partners on
such matters.”
US sanctions on Iran also face opposition from the
Europeans who are seeking to forge stronger trade relations with the
Islamic Republic.
European officials have already warned the new
US government against wrecking a nuclear agreement which they reached
with Iran last year, stressing that such a move would only isolate
Washington.
The new penalties approved by the US Senate against
Russia are melded with the Iran sanctions, putting the Trump
administration in a bind because it would have to reject stricter
measures against Iran in order to derail the Russia penalties.
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