During the autumn there has been serious debate (including parliamentary hearings) in Sweden about if this pipeline can be stopped and in that case how. This might look like a one-sided debate, so let me run it down.

These are the different groups.
Pro-pipeline: Gas companies. As Sweden does not use much gas, they are small, next to insignificant players. Should however be noted that minister of foreign affairs Carl Bildt has a lot of connections in international oil and gas, though he has not been arguing publically for the pipeline.

Anti-pipeline:
Nationalist sentiment. Russia is the old enenmy and the baltic sea is the old battle ground. Military establishment and their supporters in politics does not want russian installations in the Swedish zone, even if it is just a pipeline and pressure stations.

Enironmentalist concerns. The baltic sea is polluted and building a pipeline can only disturb it even more. To clarify, it is not about the gas as much as about construction, maintenance and eventual destruction of the pipeline. The green party is not in the ruling coalition but the baltic sea is a great concern for all parties. Climate change does not help but is not the main concern.

Farmers lobby. Biogas is getting bigger as a business and the farmers do not want competition. The Centre party (in the ruling coalition) is the traditional farmers party.

So there are powerful forces against and almost none for the pipeline.

How to stop a pipeline
Since Sweden apparently is bound by conventions to allow the construction of the pipeline, the way to stop the pipeline through swedish waters would probably be to deny the construction of pressure stations along the way.

How the swedish government will act is still pretty unclear. The result might be an indicator on how much power Bildt wields.

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