BRUSSELS, November 5. /TASS/. The European Court of Justice has dismissed an appeal filed by Nord Stream 2 AG, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline operator, against the decision on the claim for changes of gas norms of the European Union in 2019, the court said in its decision.
"The Court of Justice upholds the General Court’s judgment dismissing the action brought by Nord Stream 2 against the directive extending certain rules for the internal market in natural gas to pipelines from third countries," the court said.
The text refers to the amendments to the EU Gas Directive, hastily adopted in the spring of 2019 by the first European Commission of Ursula von der Leyen, specifically targeting the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. The amendments effectively prohibited using the pipelines at more than half of their capacity (50% had to be reserved for pumping oil from alternative suppliers, who simply do not exist at the inlet of these offshore gas pipelines). Furthermore, they subjected the pipelines to internal European unbundling rules (separating energy infrastructure from energy producers), which effectively forced the sale of the pipelines to operators independent of Russia and Gazprom.