In a bid to save Germany’s gas market, the German government has, effective immediately, taken ownership of a local branch of Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom.
Berlin has temporarily transferred the ownership of Gazprom Germania to the federal network agency as a trustee despite Moscow’s previous insisting that such a move would be illegal.
Gazprom branch would now be under the trusteeship of Germany’s main energy regulator, the Federal Network Agency, until September 30.
Economics and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck explained in a statement on Monday that it is imperative to protect public safety and order and to maintain the security of supply and this measure – the order of trusteeship – serves that purpose.
He added that if Germany wants to secure the supply, it is crucial that Berlin does not expose Germany’s energy infrastructure to arbitrary decisions by the Kremlin.
Since German law requires the go-ahead of Habeck’s ministry for any transfer of ownership in critical infrastructure requires, and that was not given, Berlin did something it had never done before, prompting legal scholar Jakub Jaraczweski to comment that he lived to see Berlin nationalize Russian companies operating in Germany.
Kremlin promptly reacted with spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressing that any nationalization in Germany of the subsidiaries of Gazprom and Rosneft would seriously violate international law, deeming it unacceptable.
A subsidiary of the Saint Petersburg-based firm, Gazprom Germania operates some of Germany’s largest natural gas storage facilities.
The subsidiary found itself transferred to several different companies on Friday and ordered to file for voluntary liquidation, prompting panic over what it would mean for existing gas contracts and frantic activity across the foreign and economy ministries to stop the move.
The ownership rights to Gazprom Germania change hands numerous times lately. Gazprom Export LLC (GPE) was the full owner of Gazprom Germania but transferred the shares to Gazprom export business services LLC (GPEBS) on March 25.
Then, 0.1% of the GPEBS shares were transferred to a shell company Palmary – no one knows who is economically and legally behind it- and, in the end, Gazprom announced it had divested itself of ownership of Gazprom Germania so the German government stressed it’s unclear who owned the company.
Be the first to comment