Russia has rejected renewed U.S. and European calls to block the Moscow-backed Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline project under the Baltic Sea.
In a resolution adopted on December 12, the European Parliament called for the pipeline to bring Russian gas directly to Western Europe, bypassing the existing networks running through Ukraine, to be canceled.
“It is a political project that poses a threat to European energy security," the resolution reads.
The move came the day after the U.S. House of Representatives condemned the $11 billion project and urged President Donald Trump to "use all available means to support European energy security."
On December 13, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Nord Stream 2 a "peaceful, advantageous, and promising” energy project and suggested that the European politicians opposed to it were “simply on the payroll of certain groups of lobbyists."
Zakharova also reiterated that U.S. efforts to undermine the pipeline project to Germany were an example of “unfair competition” to derail what Moscow describes as a purely commercial project.
