Baltic reactor closure costs may hit 10bn euros

Date: 21/02/02

By David Cronin

THE bill for closing a controversial nuclear plant in Lithuania could be 50 times the sum earmarked by the European Commission.

Vilnius' chief negotiator with the EU, Petras Austrevicius, said that estimates of the cost for shutting the second of two Soviet-era reactors in the Ignalina complex are as high as €10 billion. The Commission last month proposed spending €245 million to shut the first reactor between 2004 and 2006.

However, Austrevicius said analysts have no definitive figures yet on the final cost.

Both of Ignalina's units belong to the RBMK range of reactors used at Chernobyl in Ukraine, scene of the world's worst nuclear accident.

Lithuania has become heavily dependent on Ignalina, which provided more than 80 of its electricity in the late 1990s.

Algirdas Brazauskas' government plans to close the facility between 2006 and 2010.

Lithuania's Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis said he welcomed the EU executive's plan to help fund the closure: 'Such support should continue after 2006. Decommissioning Ignalina concerns the entire European Union and continuous specific allocations in the EU budget are absolutely necessary to successfully finalise the decommissioning.'

Meanwhile, Valionis disputed claims last week by Moscow's EU ambassador Vasily Likachev that the Union is not paying enough attention to Kaliningrad.

Valionis called on the Kremlin to fulfil EU requests to settle the status of Russia's Baltic enclave when Lithuania joins the Union. While Kaliningrad's people can travel freely into neighbouring Lithuania now, they will require visas from 2003 under EU rules.

'Russia should do its part of the job,' said Valionis. 'It should ratify a border agreement with Lithuania and demarcate the border.'

The bill for closing a controversial nuclear plant in Lithuania could be 50 times the sum earmarked by the European Commission.