US sanctions on Russia risk Europe retaliation

Germany says it will retaliate against the United States if new sanctions proposed by the US Senate against Russia damage German companies.

European and German firms are heavily involved in the Nord Stream 2 project which is about to take Russian gas across the Baltic to Europe through a pipeline.

Germany’s largest oil and gas producer Wintershall and its energy trading firm Uniper are among the European countries building the pipeline along with Royal Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV and France’s Engie.

The US Senate voted on Thursday to impose new sanctions on Russia and force President Donald Trump to get Congress approval before easing any existing sanctions on Russia.

If passed in the House of Representatives and signed into law by Trump, the bill would allow new sanctions on Russian mining, metals, shipping and railways and other sectors.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Friday it was "strange" that the sanctions could also trigger penalties against European companies, adding "that must not happen."  

German Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said Berlin would have to think about counter-measures if Trump backed the plan. "If he does, we'll have to consider what we are going to do against it" she told Reuters.

Ties between Washington and Berlin are already strained after Trump flayed Germany for running a large trade deficit with his country. The new US president has also alienated other European partners after deciding to quit the landmark Paris agreement on combating greenhouse gas emissions.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said in a joint statement on Thursday that US sanctions should not be “threatening German, Austrian, and other European enterprises.”

SS