A Nuclair-Bait-and-Switch in the Baltics To joint the EU Lithuania shut its atomic plant. Now its paying for it.

Just the price of heating increased five times. In the dense pine forest where the European Unions eastern border meets Belarus, two giant nuclear reactors sit idle. Lithuanias 3,000-megawatt Ignalina plant was once one of the most powerful nuclear facilities in the world. The condition of the entry into the EU was to shut down both reactors, because of the Chernobylstyle technology. Now the EU debt crisis has forced Brussels to slash its budget for dismantling old Eastern European atomic stations, threatening to leave Ignalina in limbo. The EU sets budgets on a seven-year cycle, originally earmarked 1,4 billion euros for decommissioning Ignalina and an additional 1,5 billion euros for similar projects in Slovakia and Burgaria (both sums are expected to be spent through 2013). The problm is that for its 2014-20 budgetary cycle, th eEU has only allotted the three countries a total of 500 million euros for the next stage of work. Ignalina General Director Zilvinas Jurksus says he needs 870 million euros to do it. Lithuania can provide only 100 million euros and the rest must come from the EU, but Brussels insists that Lithuania will get only 210 million euros-its share of the 500 million euros. For the Lithuanians, shutting down the two reactors was a major sacrifise. Formerly an exporter of electricity now depends on Russia for 80 percent of its energy. Electricity prices jumped 30 percent last year after the shutdown of the second reactor. Also, the closing of the plant was a very big shock just price of heating increased five times. Achema, the countrys biggest chemicals producer, additionally had to invest more than 40 million euros in a new electricity generator once the Ignalina reactors were shut down. Now the country says the EU is breaking its promise. Because the deal was that Lithuania closes Ignalina and the EU provides adequate assistance, because it wasnt possible to define the time and cost since it was the first time that Chernobyl-type reactors were closed in an orderly fashion, says Neilas Tankevicius ( an adviser to Lithuanias Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius). Marlene Holzner, the European commission spokeswoman in Brussels say that We are bound by the treaty to give a certain amount, but certainly not 100 percent. If Lithuania cannot raise the needed funds, dismantling will have to stop. The status of the plant would cost Lithuania 30 million euros a year, about a halfpercent of government revenue. Michele Laraia of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna say, that the tiny Baltic country is the EUs fourthpoorest country by gross domestic product per capita. Such a situation would create long-term financial stress for Lithuania. Overall, the shutdown will cost the country at least 2,8 billion euros, Tankevicius says. The decommissioning was the EUs decision, and now it affects the competitiveness of Lithuanian companies. Its a burden.