VILNIUS - Ukraine could become the fifth partner in the construction of a new nuclear power plant at Ignalia, Lithuania.
Speaking to reporters after a visit to Ukraine to meet his counterpart Viktor Yushchenko, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus revealed that Yushchenko had expressed an immediate interest in participating in the Ignalia project.
"I gave a very simple answer: Lithuania is open to all competent and tenable partners who want to participate in the construction," Adamkus said, voicing the hope that the other participants in the project [Poland, Latvia and Estonia as well as Lithuania itself] would not object to Ukraine's joining it.
The current Soviet-era reactor at Ignalia is due to be decommissioned by 2009 with its replacement mooted to come online in 2015. Total costs are currently being estimated at between 2.5 and 4 billion euros.
All the nations currently involved in the project are keen to reduce their energy dependency on Russia as much as possible. That is an objective that Ukraine would clearly benefit from as well given the current frosty relationship between Moscow and Kiev. Ukraine has already been on the receiving end of a demonstration of Russia's energy-related power when supplies of gas were temporarily suspended during a row over price rises during the winter of 2005-6.
However, hooking Ukraine up to the energy produced by the new Ignalia plant 's as opposed to simply involving it in construction 's would invlove massive additional logistic problems.
It quickly emerged that Adamkus' initiative had not had the prior approval of the other project partners.
Asked to give his opinion about Ukraine joining, Latvian foreign minister ArtisPabriks told BNS: "It is good to identify the interested parties, but itis premature now to talk about involving another country. It must be donecarefully, by weighing all pros and cons."
Pabriks noted that Lithuania had not informed Latvia about "such a step",but did not rule out that the project might be expanded.
"Both positive and negative aspects are possible here. Of course, theproject can become larger if there are more partners. At the same time,problems with coordination are possible," the minister said.
"In my opinion,there is no use in increasing the number of partners without going forwardstep by step," Pabriks added.
Andris Siksnis, a spokesman for Latvia's Latvenergo power utility, told BNS that the company had not received official information about theLithuanian president's remarks, but that the Latvian energy company fullyagrees with Pabriks' position that the countries already participating inthe project should decide together whether to involve someone else.
