Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament to visit the US for talks on preventing construction of Nord Stream 2 pipeline
The Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Andriy Parubiy will visit Washington where he will discuss with his counterparts from the United States, Georgia, Lithuania and Moldova the ways of preventing the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project.
"At the end of this month... I will be in Washington. We will have a meeting with [Speaker of the US House of Representatives Paul Ryan]; with the speakers of Georgia, Moldova, Lithuania and I hope Poland. One of the topics of our meeting will be preventing the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project," Parubiy said during the 2nd Inter-Parliamentary Conference “Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine: Strengthening the Inter-Parliamentary Component of Regional and Security Cooperation, While Developing Interaction with the EU and NATO”.
He added that when talking with the partners in Washington he also intends to raise topic of creating a regional center that would respond and develop countermeasures in response to the challenges and threats facing Ukraine and other countries of the region.
Previously, it was reported that the construction of a gas receiving station for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline began in Germany.
Opponents of the project, including Poland, the Baltic countries, Ukraine, Moldova, the US and Denmark argue that Nord Stream 2 will increase the EU's dependence on Gazprom, which already supplies about a third of the EU's gas.
Sweden, Germany and Finland approved the construction of the 1,200-km-long gas pipeline. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Nord Stream 2 project could not be implemented without preserving Ukraine as a transit country.