ERR - According to Reuters, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said during his visit to Stockholm that the joint venture of Russian and European companies to build a second gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, Nord Stream 2, was a “bad deal”.

The deal for the construction of an extension to the existing Nord Stream pipeline, the €10bn Nord Stream 2 project, was signed by state-owned Russian gas giant Gazprom, British-Dutch Shell, French Engie, Austrian OMV, and German Uniper and Wintershall in 2015.

The project is scheduled to be completed in 2019 and will double Nord Stream’s capacity to 110 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

Several Eastern European countries as well as the United States have expressed concerns that an extended Nord Stream pipeline would endanger the energy security of the European Union. The project, meanwhile, would continue.