La Lituanie en froid avec Nord Stream[en] 

Nord Stream is a planned natural gas pipeline travelling 1,220 kilometres between Vyborg, Russia and Greifswald, Germany under the Baltic Sea. Nord Stream is designed to transport up to 55 billion cubic metres of gas per year, enough to supply more than 25 million households. Construction is due to start in April 2010 (EurActiv 14/05/09). 

The shareholders in Nord Stream are Gazprom, BASF/Wintershall Holding AG, E.ON Ruhrgas AG and N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie. Gazprom leads the consortium with a 51% stake. France's GDF Suez is also reportedly joining (EurActiv 30/07/09). 

The pan-European nature of the pipeline is underscored by its status as a project subject to the EU's trans-European network energy guidelines. This status was confirmed in 2006. The total budget of Nord Steam is 7.4 billion euros, which makes it one of history's largest privately-financed infrastructure projects. 

The project is considered controversial in several countries, including Sweden, Poland and the Baltic states. 

An intensive international consultation process and dialogue with authorities throughout the Baltic region started in spring 2006. In March this year, Nord Stream submitted the 'Espoo Report', a detailed description of potential primarily transboundary impacts along the whole route. It was sent to Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany, as the pipeline is due to cross these countries' economic zones or territorial waters. Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were sent copies as affected parties. 

The Nord Stream consortium responsible for the project is currently conducting public meetings in all nine countries affected by the project. 

At a press briefing in the European Parliament yesterday (26 August), Grybauskaite was asked whether Nord Stream was still a priority for the EU. 

Her response was terse: "I'm hearing for the first time that this is a priority project for the EU," said Grybauskaite, who was until recently European commissioner responsible for financial programming and budgetary matters. 

Her host Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister who was recently elected president of the European Parliament, said he concurred with her "100%". 

In fact on 6 September 2006, the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers recognised the North European gas pipeline as "a project of European interest," and the scheme was described by Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs as "a priority project" on several occasions. 

However, it may be argued that ever since then, the route of the pipeline has been modified to avoid the territorial waters of countries unfriendly with Moscow. 

Grybauskaite said Nord Stream had "in no way" ever received EU financing and it was therefore "not possible" for it to be a priority project. She added that Lithuania had its own environmental concerns about Nord Steam and would be happy if the project was "off the table". 

Buzek agreed with his guest, reminding his audience that for the last five years he had been active in the Parliament's industry, research and energy committee, and had "never heard" that Nord Stream was a "priority project" for the Union. 

In more general terms, both Buzek and Grybauskaite highlighted the need for the EU to put in place a "common energy policy," although they both recognised that such a project was not envisaged in the treaties. 

Asked by EurActiv if such a common energy policy would require the introduction of an EU "energy czar" powerful enough to face up to Gazprom and the Kremlin, Grybauskaite used the occasion to play on words. 

"Czars in Europe – this is maybe not a good idea," she said amid laughter. She added that although the Lisbon Treaty contained some provisions for more coordination in energy policy, the problem was not the treaties but a lack of political will among EU countries. 

She added that Baltic countries still needed to interconnect their electrical systems to Europe, and expressed hope that the problem could be resolved with the assistance of the European Parliament. 

Buzek added that they had also discussed the nuclear power. The Visaginas nuclear power plant will replace the current Soviet-built Ignalina NPP, which is being phased out at the end of this year as part of Lithuania's EU accession commitments.