State Security Department report props up nuclear bid

KLAIPEDA - Some 53.2 percent of respondents in Lithuania’s five major cities oppose the construction of the Visaginas  Nuclear Power Plant (VNPP), according to a poll published by the weekly magazine Veidas. Some polls show an even greater dissatisfaction with the nuclear project.
They, like every fifth or sixth Lithuanian opposing the nuke, may be the result of the hefty anti-power plant, pro-Russia rhetoric churned out by some Russian money-fueled NGOs and media, according to a Lithuanian State Security Department (LSSD) report to be introduced in the Lithuanian Parliament this week.
 
Foreign intelligence services stay vigilant
Foreign country attempts to instigate ethnic, social and ideological enmity in Lithuania will continue in 2012 along with their endeavors to hamper Lithuania’s strategic energy projects, says the LSSD report.
“The strategists of adverse information to Lithuania, as well as other Baltic States, should be considered the subjects that are shaping the third country foreign policies, as well as related to them entities - scientific research centers, NGOs and news agencies. Thus, foreign intelligence and security services are getting engaged in the process, as the hostile information campaigns are being carried out by some Lithuania-based media outlets, NGOs and movements, whose activities are being coordinated through some foreign countries’ embassies in Lithuania,” the report points out.

It is unanimously agreed that the term “foreign countries,” as well as “third countries,” largely refers to Russia.
According to the Department, the particular threat to Lithuania stems from the obstacles the country faces while in the pursuit of providing natural gas, and while implementing the structural reforms of the Lithuanian natural gas sector. It as well comes from carrying out the Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant construction and Ignalinas Nuclear Power Plant decommissioning projects.

Disapproval equals state treason
Ahead of the report’s presentation to the parliament, Gintaras Songaila, a radical nationalist MP, has submitted a draft amendment to the Criminal Codex, proposing to bring into it the term “treason of the state’s energy independence bids” which, according to him, should be on par with treason and be punishable by up to 12 years’ incarceration.
“Though the state has been declaring its bid for energy independence for as long as the independent state has existed, no actual sanctions for officials deliberately hampering the efforts have been set out until now. That is why the core energy independence interests have not been yet ensured,” Songaila emphasized.
 
Nuke PR campaign money is secret
The prime minister, Andrius Kubilius, says he was not surprised by the information stemming from the LSSD report. “We have always felt that there is big interest in impeding the government’s projects aimed at reaching energy independence and energy security. It is important to realize that it is not only our domestic discussion as to what road to take. In it [the discussion] third parties participate, through politics, the media and public organizations,” Kubilius asserted.
He added: “Having approached the very important decisions, delaying, postponing or abandoning the already begun projects would not be a victory for anyone but to those who aim to keep us in energy dependence.”

With the information warfare on the Visaginas NPP project ready to culminate before the crucial vote in the parliament, Kubilius does not elaborate on how much his government has spent for warding off the nuclear plant-adverse information. “The Visaginas NPP publicity campaign is not very well financed, and we are seeing the results of this: there is a lot more propaganda in the air than unbiased and rational information. The State Security Department has revealed some numbers to us while informing the government of the report, and the numbers, coming as negative information from third countries, are considerably larger than the amount the Visaginas NPP has allocated for publicizing the project,” Kubilius noted.
 
Hitachi has no room for mistakes
One of the last, but not least, bouts of the nuclear information warfare was a Russian energy official’s remarks suggesting that a Japanese nuclear reactor, to be built in Lithuania, is less safe than the most advanced Russian reactors.

The comparison came from Sergey Boyarkin, the program director at Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom. Speaking in a Kaliningrad venue on the energy needs of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, and the entire Baltic Sea region, he expressed his surprise that Japan, which has stopped building single-loop nuclear reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, offers them to Lithuania.

Confronted with this, Takuya Hattori, the president of the Japan Atomic Industry Forum (JAIF), replied: “It would be absolutely unfair to say that we are exporting technically unsafe technologies. Japan manufactures and exports only technologies of the highest safety level. We are highly interested in the success of Hitachi’s project in Lithuania. Our country cannot afford to make a mistake in this area.”
For Hitachi, he said the Visaginas project is a gateway to foreign markets and, if successful, could be followed by more orders. Therefore, the Japanese are ready to help Vilnius obtain a significant amount of loans under favorable terms, according to Lrytas.lt.
 
Social Democrats: “It is utopia”
PM Kubilius expects the State Security Department report will help wavering legislators make up their minds and vote for the VNPP Concession Agreement. Some parliamentarians say they are “baffled” by the report coming out ahead of the crucial vote and suspect the timing may be “deliberate” to influence MPs’ decisions. Some, however, have hinted the report will sway their opinion of the project.

Only the opposition Social Democrats so far have clearly announced that they disapprove of the nuclear project in Visaginas; meanwhile, the other parliamentary opposition factions of the Labor Party and Order and Justice, arguing they need more information about the project, have not renounced it.
“The situation may change, but now we do not support the idea of building the nuclear power plant. With the looming possibility of the relapse of crisis, the prospects of Greece’s pullout from the eurozone and considering the condition of our finances, for Lithuania it would be utopia to take on implementation of the three large energy projects,” the Social Democrat leader Algirdas Bukevicius said.