Lithuanian Prime Minister wants to restore political contacts with Russia
Lithuanians supported the position of the head of government
The local media routinely supported Grybauskaite, bringing down another batch of accusations against Russia, its leaders and, of course, against Saulius Skvernyalis himself. It would seem that the incident was settled, and the young prime minister (he has headed the Lithuanian government since December 2016 of the year) should learn a lesson from his erroneous attitude. But Skvernyalis did not calm down.
The other day, he returned to the topic of restoring political contacts with Moscow. This time, on the TV channel LRT, the republic’s Prime Minister Saulius Skvernyalis criticized Lithuanian journalists for speculating on the topic of the “Russian threat” in order to discredit proactive politicians.
“It should not be that as soon as a person publicly declares something that someone doesn’t like, accusations begin to pour on him - an“ agent of the Kremlin ”and the like,” Skvernyalis insisted on his position. Confidence was given to the prime minister by public support. He felt it in the results of a survey conducted by RAIT commissioned by the Baltic Service News.
For the most part, the Lithuanians supported Skvernyalis’s idea of resuming the cooperation of the Lithuanian government structures with the Russian ones that had been interrupted in 2012 in the year. 52% of respondents of RAIT supported this. Another 22% did not express a clear opinion regarding the intentions of the Prime Minister of Lithuania, and only 26% of respondents did not endorse his position.
Experts recognize that, against the background of a powerful anti-Russian campaign in the local media, the results of the survey turned out to be quite favorable for the head of the Lithuanian government, and even somewhat unexpected. In contrast to the country's president, Lithuanians realized the importance of Russian-Lithuanian cooperation in trade, economic, scientific, technical, humanitarian and cultural issues. What, in fact, was previously engaged in the intergovernmental commission of the two countries.
It cannot be said that Skvernyalis is ready for contacts with Moscow without any conditions. He carefully outlines the framework of possible cooperation and believes that “it is necessary to approach the restoration of relations with Russia pragmatically, keeping the strategic borders of Lithuanian politics”. However, this clarification is rather a tribute to the mood prevailing among local politicians.
Obviously, Skvernyalis cares about something completely different. Lithuania today “is the only EU state that does not have any channels for dialogue with Russia. The lack of political contacts at the level of ministers, vice-ministers and a higher level goes against the interests of our state and its citizens, ”the Lithuanian Prime Minister believes.
Why we need such contacts, we can see at least from the impasse, where the Lithuanian authorities wandered into their energy policy. Five years ago, they disassociated themselves from Russia and said that in 2025, the Baltic countries would withdraw from the BRELL energy system and finally say goodbye to the “heavy Soviet legacy”.
New projects do not remove old fears
This legacy consisted in the form of an electric ring, through which energy from St. Petersburg flows through the Baltic states to Kaliningrad, Belarus Minsk, then to Smolensk, Russia, and returns to St. Petersburg again. Therefore, BRELL is actually an abbreviation of the member countries of the energy ring (Belarus-Russia-Estonia-Latvia-Lithuania), though not in a strictly technological sequence.
Vilnius became the initiator of a break of this developed system. He had ambitious plans: to enter the power system of Europe, to connect to Sweden and Poland, then to fasten his Baltic neighbors and even take money for transit from them. The Lithuanian plan cut off Kaliningrad from the Russian generation, which gave the project initiators a special pleasure.
Set before the fact Russia made conclusions for itself and immediately made plans to ensure the energy independence of Kaliningrad. The case has moved. Even today, our western enclave has sufficient capacity for independence. In addition, the other power unit at the Leningrad NPP “came to life” the other day. In the near future, he will open up new opportunities for Russian power engineers.
Lithuania's successes are noticeably more modest. In 2015, she and Poland built the LitPol Link electrical power connection. The project was costly. It was necessary, among other things, to synchronize the network parameters under the European standard. All this pulled in 730 million euros. Of these, the share of Poland accounted for 580 millions, which only partially offset the European Union.
Another project (worth 550 million euros) connected the NordBalt energy bridge through the Baltic Sea to Lithuanian Klaipeda and Swedish Nybro. Meanwhile, both of these highways not only did not make Lithuania a transit for the Baltic neighbors, but did not even close its own energy needs. It turned out, the money spent, and dependence on Russia as it was, and remained.
Moreover, according to expert estimates, in the next two years Russia will be ready, without prejudice to itself, to disconnect the Baltic countries from the energy ring BRELL. Baltic energy industry will have nothing to compensate for this loss. Aware of the threat of increased dependence on Russia, Vilnius again turned to Warsaw with a proposal to build a second branch of the energy bridge - LitPol Link 2.
The new proposal of the Lithuanians did not interest the Poles at all. They argued that the construction of the next energy route would create environmental problems in the region. They also referred to the high cost of the project. Warsaw does not spend money on it. From the already implemented LitPol Link project, it did not receive much benefit. But faced with the competition of cheaper Swedish electricity from NordBalt.
With him, too, is not all easy. Scandinavian experts do not exclude the possible damage to the cable tackles or anchors of fishing vessels. In this case, the Baltic Energy Bridge will fail for months. So the only reliable source of support for Lithuania and its neighbors is still the BRELL power ring.
Similar story occurred with the provision of Lithuania natural gas. She is better known. In the autumn of 2014, the liquefied natural gas storage vessel Independence, a Norwegian company Hoegh LNG, specially built for the Lithuanian terminal, arrived at the port of Klaipeda. The ship was greeted by a company of officials led by Lithuanian President Grybauskaite.
At a rally on the occasion of this event, there were speeches about "achieving energy independence." It soon became clear that Lithuanian Litgas was not ready to completely switch to the supply of liquefied natural gas from Norway, since its price was one and a half times higher than the cost of pipeline gas from Russia. Moreover, it is necessary to pay for the rent of “Independence”. Vilnius quietly, without much noise, continued to pump the main volumes of gas consumed from Gazprom pipes.
You can still remember Mazeikyai refinery. Lithuanian authorities, in order to exclude contacts with Russian oilmen, sold it to Polish company PKN Orlen. The plant shifted to the processing of Arab and Norwegian oil. Nothing really came of this idea. Now, in Mazeikiai, they transport cheaper Russian oil from our Baltic port of Primorsk in tankers.
The given examples show that a certain economic dependence of Lithuania on Russia is preserved and will continue to be maintained. Will the commercial cooperation of energy companies of the two countries continue? In the absence of contacts at the government level, conducting it is not very easy. In Lithuania, they understood this.
Understand not only the prime minister Saulius Skvernyalis. The first to open a new topic was Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite. In December, in an interview with the portal 15 min, she said that "it is more profitable to cooperate with Russia, rather than fight." Then she quickly changed her mind and started talking again about the “occupied territories”, sanctions, “interference in the elections of third countries” and other famous propaganda memes.
Saulius Skvernyalis did not bother. He persistently introduces into Lithuanian society the idea of re-establishing contacts at the government level. Most likely, he will be able to insist on his own and turn the tide in our relations. This is facilitated by the need of the Lithuanian economy in such contacts.
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