The prime minister has also stressed that he can "boldly and firmly say" that the nuclear plant project will not be launched until its economic benefit is substantiated.
"Proposals to Estonia have already been presented, probably a whole month ago, and it's very strange that people are still saying that the government has not made up its mind. So, first of all, those people who say that and write about that should accept a certain share of responsibility and refrain from spreading such a lie. The government has made a decision at a Cabinet meeting and that decision is such that a study by the Lithuanian Energy Institute has been presented to Estonia and Latvia, and conditions on which the nuclear power plant could be built, but only after agreement with partners is reached," Butkevičius said in an interview to the Lithuanian Radio on Tuesday.
In his words, active correspondence at the corporate management level has been taking place in recent years.
"But I would like to boldly and firmly say that any project, be it a nuclear facility which can cause huge financial damage to the state and the taxpayer, and if it's not economically-commercially substantiated, it will definitely not be launched. The Estonians are saying the same. And a specialist from Estonia, whom I don't want to reveal, who has already been to Lithuania and met with heads of Visaginas nuclear power plant and specialists, so he put it this way: finally, Lithuania has started doing calculations and started working the way they do it in Estonia," Butkevičius said.
On Monday, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, currently on a state visit to Lithuania, said his country would take part in the establishment of a joint enterprise for the implementation of the Visaginas nuclear power plant, if Lithuania made a good offer.
Meanwhile, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė added that "we definitely cannot blame our neighbors for what we don't manage to do ourselves." In her words, Estonian officials are right in saying that it's not clear whether Lithuania wants the new nuclear power plant or not.
Lithuania hopes to build a 1,380-megawatt nuclear power plant with Latvia and Estonia and Japan's Hitachi as a strategic partner.
