Berlin is coming under growing pressure domestically to stop the Russian gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2 after Germany announced that Kremlin opposition activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned by nerve agent Novichok.

Novichok is the same substance used in the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal, allegedly carried out by Russian security services in the U.K. in 2018.

Norbert Röttgen, head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee and one of the candidates to take over leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, on Thursday tweeted: “Diplomatic rituals are no longer enough. After the poisoning of #Nawalny we need a strong European answer, which #Putin understands: The EU should jointly decide to stop #NordStream2.”

He reiterated his point in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio. “If we want [concrete foreign policy measures], then there has to be a political European response and not just diplomatic gestures.”

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, currently in its final stages of construction, has split the bloc since its announcement in 2015, with Central European countries worrying the link will help strengthen Russia’s leverage in the region.

Germany’s political establishment, however, has long defended the pipeline as a business project, central to maintaining affordable and stable gas supply.

“The majority of Europeans have been against [the project] from the beginning — not just the east Europeans, not just the Poles … but also the French,” Röttgen said in his interview, calling it a “German project against the majority of Europeans.”

Merkel said on Wednesday she wants to discuss further steps together with NATO and other EU countries and “decide on an appropriate joint response in light of the Russian submissions” she expects from Moscow on the Navalny incident.

However, she said last week that the Navalny case should not impact the pipeline project. “Our opinion is that Nord Stream 2 should be completed,” said Merkel.

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