On December 14th the prime ministers of the three Baltic
states gathered in Vilnius to inaugurate two power lines to Poland and
Sweden that would ease the region’s dependence on the Russian grid.
The three countries hope to have completed an interconnection project by 2025.
However, on Wednesday, an Estonian Member of the European Parliament,
Kaja Kallas,
suggests that Warsaw’s new “explicitly Euro-skeptic” government is not
keen to invest in a project that does not seem sufficiently beneficial
for Poland.
If the Polish connection does not go through, according to Reuters,
the three countries are considering scaling up their connection to the
Finnish grid.
This project makes part of the vision to end the status of the region
as an “energy island,” adding 1,200 megawatts of capacity to the Baltic
region via the LitPol cable to Poland and the NordBalt undersea cable
to Sweden. The testing of the LitPol and NordBalt interconnectors should
be completed by the end of December.
The European Commission supports this project with €300mn.
Lithuania’s Energy Minister,
Rokas Masiulis, told
the Baltic Times on Tuesday that Russia undermined the construction of
the connection to Sweden, precisely because it lowers the dependence of
the region on Russia.
http://neurope.eu/article/estonian-mep-accuses-poland-of-breaking-energy-solidarity-with-the-baltics/