The Jerusalem Post is miffed about a German ‘gas deal’ with Iran.

A parliamentary state secretary in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet appears to have acted illegally in influencing the country’s Export Control office (BAFA) to approve a €100 million-plus deal for liquefied natural gas with Iran.

…
Critics charge Germany with not stepping up the pressure to restrict trade to Iran, and affirm its historical responsibility to secure Israel’s existence. Iran’s genocidal policy toward Israel is testing, for many Israelis, Germany’s commitment to the Jewish state.

Germany’s ‘historic responsibility to secure Israel’s existence’? That’s a new concept to this German dude but anyway.

Laura Rozen links to the JP and asks:

German gas deal with Iran illegal? One would think this would be a subject Senators and Congressmen and the pro Israel lobby might make a stink about. If sanctions fail, military action becomes more likely. But as one trade lawyer told me, "As usual for Germany, business takes precedence."

Baloney. It is the law that takes precedence.

The are no sanctions against Iran’s oil and gas industry.

Neither the UN sanctions nor EU sanction against Iran are targeting exports or imports with the Iranian oil and gas industry. There is no international or national law relevant in Germany that forbids such exports. There is no legal base to deny any company the right to export equipment to Iran. That is ‘free trade’ in the best sense.

Here is what happened.

The German engineering company Steiner Group got into a contract with some Iranian company  to deliver three plants to liquefy natural gas. It is a big contract of €100 million, four times the normal annual turnover of Steiner. The plants will mostly be build in Germany, shipped to Iran and set up there by the Steiner-Group engineers. There are no possible nuclear or weapon proliferation issues with such plants.

A year ago the company requested a routine export clearance from the German Federal Office of Economics and Export Control. It expected no struggle, but the clearance was delayed and delayed again.

Finally the company contacted their local parliamentarian, Mr. Hartmut Schauerte. They were lucky as Schauerte is also a member of the administration. He is parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. The export control office is, as its own website says, "subordinated to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology  (BMWi)."

The BMWi ministry’s org-chart (pdf) says Schauerte:

Represents the Minister in the political arena and provides the Minister with policymaking support, particularly on small and medium-sized enterprises and bureaucracy reduction; Federal Government Commissioner for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

With a turnover of €25 million a year, Steiner-Group is a ‘medium sized enterprise’. So Schauerte did what he is supposed to do. He woke up the bureaucrats in an office subordinated to the ministry he is helping to lead and told them to do their job.

The export control office had no legal base to deny the export clearance and in the end had to issue it.

Now the bureaucrats seem to be a bit pissed, lamenting about ‘independence’ towards the Jerusalem Post.  They are in fact not independent but subordinated to the ministry. Their job is to make timely decisions on a legal base. There is no
legal base to deny the export clearance for liquefaction plants to
Iran. When the bureaucrats did not do what they were supposed to do, the relevant secretary in the ministry intervened.

There was certainly nothing illegal in this.

The Merkel government could of course introduce a law that forbids such exports to Iran. But then the German parliamentarians would have to be asked to vote for higher unemployed and less export profits. They and their voters are not inclined to do or allow such only to appease Israeli paranoia.