BERLIN, January 20. /TASS/. The German company Gas for Europe, which was a subsidiary of Nord Stream 2 AG, has ceased to exist as of January 1, 2023, the t-online news portal reported on Friday, citing an extract from the trade register.

Gas for Europe was set up on January 26, 2022 through the pipeline certification process, which was never completed. Nord Stream 2 AG, headquartered in Switzerland, was obliged to establish a subsidiary in Germany and transfer the main capital of the German segment of the pipeline to it. The subsidiary was supposed to become the sole operator of the gas pipeline section in Germany in accordance with the law of the country and European standards.

The closure of the company formally means that even if Nord Stream 2 was repaired and relations between the West and Russia normalized, certification would still be impossible from a legal point of view.

On February 22, 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the German government was suspending the certification of the Nord Stream 2 project after Russia recognized the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. The next day, US President Joe Biden ordered his administration to impose sanctions on the operator of the Nord Stream 2 AG project and its management.

The construction of Nord Stream 2 was fully completed on September 10, 2021. Initially, it was planned to be completed before the end of 2019, but due to US sanctions, work was delayed. The gas pipeline consists of two strings with a total capacity of 55 billion cubic meters per year, which run from the coast of Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany.