Litouwse kerncentrale waarschijnlijk langer open (en)

EUOBSERVER / VILNIUS - Lithuania is considering asking the EU to extend the deadline for closing the second "Chernobyl-type" nuclear reactor at its Ignalina power plant, despite signing up to close the unit by 2009 in its EU accession treaty and pocketing €900 million in EU aid.

"When the European Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency experts visited Ignalina, they said it's much safer than any other atomic installations in the region and that it could be operated safely until 2025," Lithuanian president Valdimis Adamkus said on Thursday (23 February).

Asked if Vilnius is planning to ask the EU to relax Lithuania's legal obligations to shut the plant down by 2009, he said "I did not say we are not going to do that," making it clear that Lithuania will honour its promises if it cannot find agreement for the move at EU level.

Energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs i in the past two weeks gave a blunt "no" to a similar request from Bulgaria to keep old reactors open despite accession treaty promises, with Sofia arguing that speedy closure will create electricity shortages in Balkan neighbours, such as Albania.

Lithuania is already planning to build two new reactors at Ignalina using more modern technology in a project costing €5 billion and designed to come on stream in 2015. But Vilnius' argument is that it will be hard to bridge the energy supply gap between 2009 and 2015, leaving it totally dependent on Russia for the six year period.

"The commissioner said [no] because it is his job. The commission must defend the accession treaties," a Lithuanian diplomat told EUobserver. But she explained that an Ignalina request would be decided at EU member state level, with Vilnius and Sofia in talks to build joint momentum.

Lithuania is traditionally less outspoken than Poland about worries that Russia uses its energy monopoly to bully customers in the political sphere, with Russia last July shutting off oil supplies to a major petrol refinery in Lithuania after it was sold to a Polish instead of a Russian firm.

But Mr Adamkus said Russian leader Vladimir Putiin's bullish foreign policy speech at the Munich security conference two weeks ago was an "eye-opener" for him.

"Yes," he answered to the question if Russia is using energy as a political weapon. "I read the Munich speech twice to understand what it means."