VILNIUS - The prime ministers of Lithuania and Poland on March 2 signed an agreement on building a new atomic power plant in Lithuania, while the Lithuanian side hinted it would acquire a 34 percent stake in the project and the other three parties 's Poland, Latvia and Estonia 's 22 percent each.
The agreement, signed in Warsaw by Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas and his Polish counterpart Jaroslaw Kaczynski, solidifies an informal agreement made in December, when Poland first announced its interest in joining the Baltic states' nuclear power plant project.
Beyond just planning an atomic plant, the bilateral agreement also calls for interconnecting the two countries' natural gas transportation systems and electricity grids and compiling a feasibility study of diversifying energy supplies in the region, particularly natural gas.
Commenting the agreement in Vilnius on March 5, Kirkilas said that Lithuania would continue to press the project's partners for a larger stake.
"We are sticking to our opinion," he told reporters. "The Polish side and other states seem to accept that 's that is, 34 percent of shares for Lithuania and 22 percent each to the other states."
The prime minister added, "Our demand was a reasonable one, and it seems to me that the other players more or less agree with that."
But not everyone apparently agrees. Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis slammed the deal, calling it "amateur."
"We did not agree to this," he told BNS on March 6.
Officials from Eesti Energia (Estonian Energy) expressed surprise at Lithuania's decision to "grant itself" a larger stake.
In the words of spokeswoman Helen Sabrak, Estonian Energy, Lithuanian Energy and Latvenergo "have agreed equal holdings in the Lithuanian nuclear power plant project."
"Any change in this will be by consensus between the three companies, and it had certainly not been reached as of Monday (March 5)," she told the Postimees daily.
The three state-owned Baltic utilities, together with Polish Power Grid, are responsible for negotiating details of the project.
Estonian government officials also expressed dismay. "To put it mildly, the Lithuanian move was traditional," said Heido Vitsur, advisor the economic affairs minister, referring to a botched privatization three years ago when the Lithuanian government unexpectedly nullified a bid by Estonian Energy.
Vitsur said that Estonia would continue to participate as long as the plant project remained profitable.
Polish energy officials hailed the agreement, as it makes them a full partner in the atomic plant project.
"PSE (Polish Power Grid) became a full-fledged project partner on Friday (March 2)," company president Jacek Socha was quoted as saying.
"The absence of such a document placed us in an unequal position compared with other project partners, who enjoyed the support of their respective governments," he said.
According to plans, the new atomic plant would be built near the site of the existing nuclear facility in Ignalina, which is to be decommissioned in 2009. The new plant will have one or two reactors 's each with a capacity of 1,600 megawatts 's and will cost some 2.5 - 4 billion euros.
The four countries would like the new facility to be prepared by 2015, which is currently the most optimistic scenario.
