# Why would the Nord Stream pipelines have been sabotaged?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-the-nord-stream-pipelines-have-been-sabotaged/972320>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 27, 2022, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-the-nord-stream-pipelines-have-been-sabotaged/972320 "2022-09-27T14:42:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 103

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**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2022, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-the-nord-stream-pipelines-have-been-sabotaged/972320/103 "2022-10-01T11:39:22Z")

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> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> > [@Pardel-Lux](#):
> >
> > I wonder what you mean by that. There is the European Commission, the European Council, the EU Parliament and 27 governments in the Member States. But there is no EU government that I know of.
> 
> Likewise, the US government has the House, the Senate, the Executive Branch, the President, the Supreme Court, the DOJ, etc.
> 
> Breaking something down into its constituent parts doesn’t change what is is.

Jumping in for a quick comment on this, because the American and the European are talking past one another across an unrecognized semantic gap. As an American transplant to Europe, it took me a bit to get my own head around it and adjust my terminology.

Generally speaking, for an American, _everything_ that is part of the state apparatus is “government.” The executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the counter at the department of motor vehicles, the administration of the school district … If it’s not private, church, or non profit, it’s “government.” It’s a very broad term meaning those who have been delegated to run the public sector.

But elsewhere, “government” has a much narrower meaning. Think of the political argument raging in the UK right now, which has members of Parliament raging against Liz Truss’s government. The people she has recruited to carry out her political agenda are “in government.” This is _distinct_ from Parliament as the lawmaking body, or from the civil servants who staff the ministries. The ministry’s _leader_ is in government, as they drive the agenda, and the civil servants report to and serve the government, but they are not _in and of_ the government, strictly speaking.

So from these two perspectives: The American looks at the EU’s lawmaking body (accepting the nuance that its laws are not _laws_ per se but must be transcribed into law by member states), and sees people elected and delegated by the public to decide how things are run, so that’s “government.” But the European looks at Brussels and sees _only_ the Parliament and the administrative services supporting it (plus the Bank in Frankfurt and the Court in Luxembourg, etc.), with no centralized executive carrying out a unified political agenda, and does _not_ see “government.”

I hope this clarifies the context of the disagreement.

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