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/
