Latvian and Estonian Prime Minister, who are in Vilnius today, confirmed that their countries are interested in participating in the construction of the Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania.  The Lithuanian TV3 channel on 2 November announced that Riga is already sending signals to Vilnius that Latvia will pull out from the project.  However, next day the Latvians denied this information.

According to Latvia’s Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, Latvia’s government kept its political commitment to participate in the project.  He stated that ‘As regards our government commitment this has already been done several years ago in Trakai and we intent to stay in this project according to this agreement,” he told the reporters in Vilnius, Alf a.lt writes.

Estonia’s Prime Minister Andrus Ansip also confirmed Tallinn’s interest in the nuclear facility project. “We have the oil shell power stations which were built long ago, which pollute environment…It is reasonable to diversify our energy production so we would like to go on with this Visaginas new nuclear power plant project,” he said to reporters.

“Good news – Estonia’s Prime Minister has expressed his support to the project and said that its implementation should be as fast as possible. Both countries – both the Estonians and the Latvians – want to participate in it. Project executive Sarunas Vasiliauskas has confirmed that the tender on the strategic investor will be announced by the end of this year. I think there can be no higher-level confirmation,” he told BNS.

Such an assurance of Latvia and Estonia was significant in a political sense: “It is very important both for the common electricity market project and the new nuclear facility project. It is also an important message for future potential strategic investor,” the Minister of Energy Sekmokas added.