The infiltration of Russia’s influence agents into Germany’s political and economic system threatens the independence of German leadership decision-making, as well as the security of the Euro-Atlantic energy market functioning. The US’s open blackmail by Russian agents in the Bundestag questions Washington’s confidence in official Berlin. The rhetoric of individual representatives from the Bundestag and German business circles shows that, amid the Kremlin continuing its policy of organizing murders and undermining democratic values and procedures in Europe and Germany, in particular, such a Kremlin policy is acceptable for some politicians in Berlin.
Berlin will consider countermeasures if the US imposes sanctions on Nord Stream 2, the pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany, the head of the Bundestag’s Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy Klaus Ernst has said.”The way we shape our energy policy is not of American’s concern,” – he added in an interview to Russian RIA Novosti.
Berlin could, for example, target US liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, according to the Bundestag member.
This Klaus Ernst’s statement voices the Russian Gazprom’s position that went to blackmail the United States in order to oust our LNG exporters from the European market. The policy of using energy resources as a means of political pressure is Russia’s calling card, actively used in Eastern Europe. Despite the fact that the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline has not begun its work yet, it is already used by Russia to worsen relations with the United State, so as to provide political pressure in Europe. And official Berlin allows Russian lobbyists to use this weapon against their partners.
Klaus Ernst is one of the lobbyists serving Russia’s interests in Germany. He belongs to the left-wing German politicians, and was one of the “Labor and Social Justice Party” (WASG) leaders, founded by the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) people, and now representing the “Left” Party (DIE LINKE). The “Left” Party is working hand in glove with such political forces as the German Communist Party, the Socialist Alternative (SAV), Marx 21 – Network for International Socialism, and other post-communist and post-socialist political marginal projects serving the Kremlin ever since the Berlin Wall. In 2012, the party held joint activities with Alexis Tsipras’s ultra-left Greek SYRIZA, who was under the Kremlin’s sway.
A number of the “Left” figures and movements are under the German Federal Constitutional Defense Service’s secret surveillance that particularly considers Lothar Bisky’s statements of democratic socialism being the party’s goal, as “extremist”. Surveillance over the entire “Left” organization is kept in four western lands controlled by the CDU / CSU; and over the “Communist platform” – practically throughout the country.
Klaus Ernst regularly attends economic conferences organized by Gazprom, Rosneft, Gazprombank and the Russian Gas Society in Berlin on an ongoing basis. He is also a member of the Eastern Committee, an influential lobby organization representing the interests of German entrepreneurs, commercially tied with Russian partners and operating on the Russian market. Ernst lobbied for the lifting of sanctions against Russia imposed in response to Crimea’s annexation. He hosted several events aimed to demonstrate the dangers of sanctions for the German economy. One of these events was scandalous due to the publication of a fake study by analyst Julian Hinz of the Kiel Institute for World Economy (IfW), confirming the thesis about the especially negative consequences of sanctions for Germany.
