President of Lithuania: Closing Ignalina NPP will deteriorate regional ecology
President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus who is currently on a visit in Brussels, has raised at a meeting with EU leadership an issue of extending operation of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, from an unexpected perspective. According to Adamkus, ecological situation of the whole region will deteriorate in case the NPP is closed. REGNUM has reported about the Lithuanian president's statement, citing his press office.
Assuring European colleagues that Lithuania supports recommendations of the European Commission on combating the climate change, Adamkus, however, has drawn attention to the complex situation the region is going to face after 2010, the press service informed. Lithuanian president has pointed to the fact that after the atomic power plant is closed, other Lithuanian power plants will be forced to use sorts of fuel that will pollute the environment more seriously.
The president has emphasized the vulnerability of Lithuania and the whole Baltic region. He thinks that Lithuania will “become totally dependent from the Russian gas,” whereas electric grid connecting the republic with the European Union has not yet been constructed. Adamkus stressed the necessity to discuss particular steps and methods that should prevent repeating the situation with the “Druzhba” oil pipeline, when even European efforts did not help to talk Russia into resuming oil supplies to Lithuania, the press service has informed.
Adamkus is convinced that closing the old NPP and construction of a new modern atomic power plant is becoming an exclusively important issue of Lithuania's national security.
He has urged that the European Union needs to speed up extednding its power grid towards its isolated energy markets. Valdas Adamkus has stressed that first steps in grid construction between Lithuania and Poland and Lithuania and Sweden have already been made. However, decisions have to also be taken regarding other necessary projects, “especially in the gas sector.”
A public campaign for the extending of the operation of Ignalina NPP is going on in Lithuania. Lithuanian parliamentarians are campaigning for holding a referendum on the issue. Head of government Gediminas Kirkilas stated that he was negotiating with some EU senior officials about the possibility to extend the power plant's operation.
Lithuania committed itself to closing second and last blocks of the Ignalina NPP no later than in 2009. It was one of the conditions of Lithuania's joining the European Union. There are plans in the country to construct a new NPP – together with Latvia, Estonia, and Poland. According to expert estimates, such plant may be set in operation not earlier than in 2015.
22:54 03/14/2008
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