New CDU leader Armin Laschet holds a news conference after CDU leadership meeting at the party's headquarters in Berlin, Germany January 25, 2021. Michael Sohn/Pool via REUTERS
Reuters: Exclusive: Navalny affair no grounds to cancel Nord Stream pipeline, new German CDU chief says
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany should not drop support for the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia over the crackdown on Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, as “feel-good moralising” is not foreign policy, the man best placed to be the next German chancellor told Reuters.
Pointing to U.S. purchases of crude oil from Russia, Armin Laschet described himself as a political realist - or “Realpolitiker” - and said: “We have to take the world as it is in order to make it better.”
Laschet, who last month won an election to the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), said both values and interests were important in diplomacy.
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WNU Editor: The French want the project stopped .... France calls for Nord Stream 2 to be halted as Navalny protests continue (S&P Global). It is not going to happen. Germany is dependent on Russia's gas for its energy needs.
