Nuclear legacy holds Lithuania back

Date: 29/04/1999

Vilnius's reluctance to close its atomic power plant may delay its entry into the EU. Simon Taylor reports

Lithuania holds a world record, but not one to be envied.

The biggest of the three Baltic republics generates a massive 80% of its energy from nuclear power, more than any other country in the world.

The two units at Ignalina in the east near the border with Belarus, built in the 1980s and for a long time the source of cheap electricity for Lithuanian industry, have become a political millstone around the neck of the republic in its bid to join the EU.

The battle between the Union and Vilnius over the future of Ignalia is mirrored across central and eastern Europe, with many of the applicants facing demands for potentially dangerous plants to be shut down which could, if ignored, delay their entry into the EU. Only this week, environmental group Greenpeace attacked Slovakia's decision not to close two Soviet-designed reactors at Jaslovske Bohunice, calling on the Union not to start accession talks with the country until its government agrees to shut them down.

Next month, Lithuanian nuclear regulator Vatesi is likely to renew Ignalina's operating licence following a review of safety procedures at the plant. Yet despite improvements, the message from the Union remains the same as ever. Lithuania must make progress towards closing part of the Ignalina nuclear power plant or run the risk of not being invited to start accession negotiations with the EU at the Helsinki summit in December.

" You need to have unanimity to let them in; in that sense it is a risk. One member state could block the start of negotiations," says Henrik Schmiegelow, head of the European Commission delegation in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, pointing out that any decision to invite the country to join the first wave must be agreed by all 15 EU leaders.

The chances of Lithuania joining the talks depend on the next Commission report on Vilnius' progress towards meeting the criteria for EU entry. This will assess whether the country has complied with the recommendations of the last report, which stressed that Vilnius' international commitments must be respected - including the need for a firm commitment not to prolong the operating life of Unit 1.

However, for the people of Lithuania, the closure of Ignalina has become a highly political issue, amid strong feelings that the West does not appreciate the safety improvements which Lithuania claims have been made or the difference between the early version of the RBMK reactor which caught fire at Chernobyl in 1986 and the later model used at Ignalina.

Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius stresses the difficulties in convincing the Lithuanian population to support decommissioning. "We cannot close Unit 1 at Ignalina in 2002 because 90% of the population would not agree," he maintains.

For Vagnorius, any decision to close the two units must be taken solely on technical grounds, and not for "political reasons". He adds that if there are any doubts about the plant's safety, the government is ready to close it immediately.

Vagnorius also insists that a compromise must be reached on a closure date in talks with the EU and the other international partners. "We are ready to discuss a realistic proposal," he says, although he adds provocatively that the reactors could continue operating for another ten to 15 years. This would mean a head-on clash with the Commission, which maintains that the two units at the plant should be closed by the time their fuel channels need replacing. This would be by around 2002 in the case of Unit 1 and a few years later in the case of the second unit, as Lithuania agreed in the 1994 Nuclear Safety Account.

" The design of the two units is fundamentally flawed. They cannot be brought up to western standards," argues Schmiegelow. The main problems are the lack of a containment vessel to reduce the release of radioactivity if there is a leak and the use of highly flammable graphite in the reactor core.

But Petras Austrevicius, head of Lithuania's European Integration Committee, insists that closing Ignalina would have a catastrophic economic impact on his country, which has seen its expected growth rate for this year cut from 7 to 3.5% because of the effects of Russia's economic crisis. "Does the EU want Lithuania with a collapsed economy which has to rebuild its energy sector from scratch?" he asks.

The Commission does not, however, accept the Lithuanian government's gloomy predictions about the costs and impact of decommissioning the power plant.

It estimates the cost of taking Ignalina out of service at around €1 billion over a period of up to 30 years, while some Lithuanian studies put the figure at closer to €3 billion.

The key question is whether Lithuania will continue to be a net exporter of electricity. Commission officials in Brussels say the issue of excess capacity is the "most difficult point" in discussions on the country's energy strategy.

Schmiegelow points out that Lithuania produces three times as much electricity as other countries with the same gross domestic product, a legacy of the Soviet era when Moscow chose it to provide energy for the neighbouring republics.

He adds that energy exports are becoming less and less economically viable, citing the example of Belarus, which has no cash to pay for its imports.

Schmiegelow also points out that some of the economic analyses of the effects of closing Ignalina include the costs of building new generating capacity to continue the production of surplus power for export.

" There is a question of whether it is reasonable that Lithuania makes further investment in capacity which exceeds its own needs", he says, pointing out that this issue had not been properly addressed in Lithuania's draft energy strategy, which is currently being discussed with the Commission.

The Commission and the Lithuanian government also disagree over the eventual job losses at the plant.

The former argues that 90% of the mainly Russian employees would be kept on during and after decommissioning because of their expertise, while the latter insists that most of the workforce would be dismissed immediately if the plant was shut down.

Commission officials will meet Lithuanian Economics Minister Vincas Babilius at the end of next month to take stock of all the issues related to the plant's closure. These include forecasts for Lithuania's energy supply and demand, and the cost of decommissioning and replacing lost generating capacity.

Yet despite warnings about the damage a lack of progress on Ignalina could do to Vilnius' chances of EU membership, the government appears adamant that the issue of a fixed date for decommissioning should only be settled once Lithuania is negotiating terms of entry into the Union. "The issue of closing Ignalina should not be related to the start of accession negotiations for Lithuania," says Vagnorius. "Not extending an invitation to Lithuania can in no way increase the safety of the plant."

The prime minister is convinced that Lithuania has made sufficient progress in other areas of reform to earn a place among the negotiating countries next year, citing new legislation reforming the civil service, improvements in bankruptcy law and progress in privatising many formerly state-owned countries.

" We are not less well prepared for starting negotiations than those countries who have already started negotiations," he argues.

Lithuania's popular President Valdas Adamkus, a former senior official in the US Environmental Protection Agency, admits that EU leaders might decide at Helsinki to exclude Lithuania from the talks despite its progress on reform, as happened in Vienna last year. "This is a political decision but there is no guarantee that political considerations will not prevail again," he says.

But Adamkus does not accept that Ignalina could provide some existing member states with an excuse to keep Lithuania in the waiting room - unless the EU decides to change the ground rules.

" I do not believe that Ignalina is the key issue. It was always said that Ignalina would not be the main subject of Lithuanian membership of the EU," he says.

Clearly, any decision to shut down the plant would be very hard to explain to the Lithuanian population, some of whom see the Union's insistence on closure as an uncomfortable reminder of the diktats of the Soviet era. But given the EU's insistence on eventual closure, it would do well to start preparing the ground as Ignalina's days are surely numbered.

Major feature on the issue of Lithuania's massive reliance on nuclear energy and the EU's call for it to reduce this reliance.