This is ridiculous. NATO has no authority on energy policy. Look at how difficult it is for NATO to agree on even things that it actually deals with like which countries to accept as members. North Macedonia spent over a decade in the waiting room because of the veto of a single member country.

If you believe Russia is your only conceivable source of energy, then dealing with it is pretty straightforward indeed: just get on your knees and do what is asked of you. What the Russians have capacity for is suffering. The economic well-being of its citizenry is less of a concern for the Russian government than for Western any government because the Russian government cannot be voted out.

Russia is a country that puts its great power interests above everything else. You cannot deal with it assuming it will follow the same mercantile logic and tendency to pursue positive sum results as a country like Germany.

Russia's leaders and to a degree its citizenry dream of restoring the great power status of Russia. For Putin, the fall of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". They're mentally stuck in the 19th century. Empire building is what they care about the most.

P.S.

Historically, whenever Germany and Russia get too chummy and start making straightforward deals, Eastern Europe is in for some very rough times.