Kommersant: Project of Belarusian Nuclear power plant construction collapses
15
9:48, — Nuclear power plant in Belarus
A new conflict is beginning to show in the recently exacerbating relations between Russia and Belarus.
Minsk has officially refused to create a joint venture with Russian Inter RAO to sell electricity of the future Belarusian nuclear power plant. As a result of that signing of an intergovernmental agreement on construction of the NPP and launching the project implementation are postponed for an indefinite term, writes a Russian newspaper “Kommersant”.
It was stated yesterday for First Vice Prime Minister of Belarus Uladzimir Syamashka that the country refuses to found a joint venture with Russia to sell energy of the future Belarusian nuclear power plant (2.4 GW). He underlined that the intergovernmental agreement on contraction of the NPP is nevertheless “close to signing”. But creation of the sales joint venture was offered by the Russian side as an obligatory condition for sticking the agreement. The joint venture was to be engaged in energy supplies in Belarus and its export, in particular in Lithuania, where Ignalina NPP stopped its work in 2010. A state company Inter RAO EUS was to become a participant of the joint venture from the Russian side. The board of directors of this company is headed by Vice Prime Minister Igor Sechin.
Yesterday Rosatom (Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of this Russian state corporation was to build the Belarusian NPP) denied comments on the statement by Syamashka. Inter RAO stressed that Minsk’s denial to set up the sales joint venture “caused surprise”. A representative of the company noted that until recently Belarus agreed for creation of the joint venture, and reasons for changing the position are unknown to Inter RAO. But now “the entire scheme of agreements” is changing vitally, the interlocutor of “Kommersant” added. Inter RAO is ready for new talks, but it is hard to name the possible term of signing an intergovernmental agreement. The date for finishing document’s drafting is not told by Rosatom as well. “Talks on the NPP in Belarus are proceeding extremely hard,” confirmed a spokesperson of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Peskov, refusing to go into detail.
In March the Russian-Belarusian joint venture was called one of the mechanisms of returning the loan Moscow planned to give to Minsk for the NPP construction. The sum required, according to unofficial sources, was varying from ˆ5 billion (Russia offered for construction of the NPP itself) to ˆ9 billion (Belarus’ calculations including infrastructure and housing for builders).
But now two well-informed sources of “Kommersant” note that the joint venture is needed by Inter RAO for advancing in the markets of Belarus and the Baltic states.
Recently the relations of the countries have become aggravated. After a gas war in June Russia and Belarus started an information war. Last month NTV channel screened “Godbatka” and “Godbatka-2”. In this film Lukashenka was charged with assassinations of politicians and a journalist in Belarus. And in the beginning of the week the situation was aggravated by Russian President Dzmitry Medvedev. In the meeting with journalists in Sochi he said openly for the first time that in 2008 Lukashenka himself agreed to recognize independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but failed to fulfill his promise.
Write your comment (15)
News
on topic
Export
