Dalia Grybauskaitė told BNS that, in her view, three or four large-scale projects, including Lithuania’s electricity interconnections with Poland, a gas pipeline between Lithuania and Poland, as well as additional electricity interconnections, could be financed in the region of the Baltic countries and Poland between 2014 and 2020.
“Full package of energy projects, the so-called trans-European ones, like the interconnections and the upgrade of capacity as well as new technologies, will be specified in October, during Lithuania’s Council Presidency, and everything will have to be financed from the new financial framework. The amount of 5 billion euros has been earmarked for this purpose. And I have proposed to the Council to reallocate funds for these projects so that the money could be used as early as possible, without waiting the entire seven-year period. It’s the so-called front-loading, in particular as the talks on the financial framework have not yet been finalized,” Grybauskaitė told BNS by phone from Brussels.
“It is also necessary to consider additional lending possibilities so that business could get softer loans through the European Investment Bank with softer interest rates and could invest in energy projects,” she told BNS.
She noted that the EU Council mentioned energy security, including nuclear energy, outside Europe once again. “It was our proposal and it was accepted and included in the Council’s conclusions. The results are pretty good,” Grybauskaitė said.
“After all we, the Lithuanians, have long been trying to tell and prove that the European energy policy is very important, that it should be common. Finally, the objective reasons made the Europeans start paying much more attention to the energy policy. And in particular due to major changes in geopolitical energy situation,” Lithuania’s President said.
Asked by BNS whether Russia had been mentioned in this context, she said: “Russia has not been specified but the leaders spoke about dependence on external suppliers, which makes it perfectly clear what it is all about.”
