Lithuania, Poland Again Fail to Sign Electricity Bridge Agreement

Oct 22, 2007 -Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English

Lithuania's Lietuvos Eenergija energy systems and Poland's Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne on Saturday failed to negotiate and sign an agreement to implement an energy bridge project to link up the two countries' electricity grids.

"The Polish energy company argued it cannot sign the agreement if it is not provided with guarantees that Poland will control 1,000 - 1,200 megawatts [about one third] of electricity to be generated by a new nuclear power plant," Lietuvos Energia's spokesperson Aurelia Trakseliene told Interfax after one more round of the talks ended on Saturday.

Lithuania deems the Polish demand unfeasible, given that no decision has yet been made on the capacity of the future nuclear power plant. In addition to this, the nuclear power plant is to be built by three Baltic states and Poland, therefore thequotas are to be negotiated with the other partners in the project, she said.

This means that Polish President Lech Kaczynski's pledge to have an electricity agreement signed between Lithuania and Poland within days, made at a recent conference on energy security in Vilnius, has remained unfulfilled.

Analysts in Vilnius think that the agreement will not be signed earlier than in a month or even longer, given the prospect of parliamentary elections and government formation in Poland.