BRUSSELS, January 18. /TASS/. During his visit to Germany NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated the lack unity within NATO on the Nord Stream 2 project and immediately cited the words of the head of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol that Gazprom is allegedly manipulating gas prices in the EU.

He said this at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The broadcast of the press conference was conducted by the NATO press service.

"There are different views among NATO Allies on the issue of Nord Stream 2 but all Allies agree on the importance of diversification of the sources of supply for energy for many reasons, for environmental reasons, but also for security reasons," he said adding that NATO is "encouraging Allies to diversify their supplies,"

"Because this is good for the reliability of energy supplies, but also important as part of the transition to a more climate friendly system of energy supplies throughout NATO countries," he said.

"I have taken, of course, note of what Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency stated that what we've seen over the last months is…it's a reduction in the Russian exports of natural gas to Europe. That Russia has the capability to significantly increase exports if they so want, and also a depletion, significant reduction of the mantle gas in the storage sites of Gazprom. So he referred to this as a manipulation of the European gas market," Stoltenberg stated.

European Commission sees no violations

Earlier, the European Commission officially admitted that Gazprom had fully complied with its contractual obligations to the EU consumers in 2021.

On January 13, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager said that the EC is "eagerly awaiting the information" from Gazprom to its official questionnaire about the reduction of gas supplies during the gas crisis. She added that so far the EC has not come to any conclusions about the presence of some violations by the Russian company.

In response, the press service of Gazprom said that the holding is in contact with the European Commission on gas supplies to Europe and has already provided some of the required information.

From September to December 2021, a number of EU countries accused Gazprom of limiting gas supplies to the EU during a period of peak energy prices, believing that the Russian supplier, which covers about 40% of the EU's gas needs, manipulated European prices.

However, European Commission leaders admitted that the European gas crisis was resulted by a number of factors, including a rise in global energy prices, bad weather that reduction of European wind power generation for several months, and some others.

Gazprom repeatedly stated that its deliveries to the EU countries in the autumn of 2021 increased compared to the same period last year and that all contractual obligations to the EU countries were fulfilled in full. This fact has been confirmed by both individual EU states and the European Commission.

Gas exports from Russia to non-CIS countries in 2021 increased by 5.8 billion cubic meters in comparison with 2020 and totaled 185.1 billion cubic meters.