Germany has no plans to shut down the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

In a reply dated October 26, 2022, the German parliament, the Bundestag, stated that Germany has no plans to decommission the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The answer was given in response to a question posed by a politician for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The federal government is unable to proceed toward the termination of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline because it did not start up. The line is not currently scheduled to be removed, especially the portion of the line that is located in German territorial waters, according to the German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Change.

Germany imported 55 percent of its gas from Russia in 2021, but by June 2022 that proportion had dropped to 26 percent, in part because to the Nord Stream 1 pipeline’s lower gas flow from Russia.

The nation, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has promised to stop importing any energy from Russia by the middle of 2024.

According to an answer made in the parliament by Germany’s Economic Affairs ministry, the country could be slammed with a €46 billion ($45.4 billion) charge for switching from Russian gas to alternatives. “The evolution of gas prices heavily influences the size of the (anticipated) costs related to the substitution of Russian gas. The fluctuating gas prices on the spot market, where some of the necessary volumes must be purchased, are particularly significant in this context. In light of this, the federal government’s latest cost estimate is in the neighborhood of 46 billion euros, it said.

Beginning in June 2022, Russia will stop supplying gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany and other European countries. On September 29, amid escalating hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, the former shut down the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines indefinitely after discovering many leaks in them.