No, I merely argue that if you read them to be threats in that sense, they are pretty pointless threats. And it thus makes little sense to read them as such, be

No, I merely argue that if you read them to be threats in that sense, they are pretty pointless threats. And it thus makes little sense to read them as such, because they would be such unimpressive threats. Your US/Germany comparison doesn't work, since that's an entirely different situation. For starters, a state like the US can actually apply pressure or use force, because there isn't an established strong framework saying it can't nor anything directly enforcing what little there is. US enforced sanctions over the pipeline construction because it didn't like the pipeline, nothing Germany can do directly. (And if you want to assume the recent sabotage was the US, pretty much the same applies) The commission is just not an independent state-level actor in that way. It's actually constrained by a state-like legal framework around it, granting it limited powers for specific purposes. Outside of those, it can and will be reigned in very quickly.