Lithuania’s president warns of Russia’s rising influence in east

**~~Baluarte~~** · 07-04-2013, 01:40 AM

As she takes the helm of the EU’s rotating presidency, Lithuania’s president has a message for her fellow European leaders: beware the Russian bear.

“There is now a decisive time where Russia is trying to persuade the eastern partners of the EU to go closer towards a customs union,” Dalia Grybauskaite said in an interview with the Financial Times. “Because of economic difficulties, Europe is very busy internally . . . This makes it very convenient for some third countries to spread their influence in the east.”

Lithuania is not the first former communist country to take over the EU presidency. Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have held the job, which has responsibility for managing Brussels’ Byzantine legislative process.
But the Baltic state of 3m is the first former Soviet republic to take on the highly symbolic role, which gives Vilnius an outsized platform to set Europe’s agenda for the next six months.

Ms Grybauskaite, a Brussels veteran who spent five years as the EU’s budget commissioner, insisted she would not use the EU presidency as a platform to harden European policy towards the Kremlin of President Vladimir Putin.

At the same time, she has made a November summit in Vilnius between the EU and six former Soviet republics – Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – a centrepiece of her country’s presidency and has already started lobbying her fellow leaders to embrace these “eastern partners”, even though some are accused of slipping towards authoritarianism.

The most awkward debate is likely to be over Ukraine. For nearly two years, the text of a sweeping bilateral agreement – part free-trade deal, part political harmonisation pact – has been awaiting EU signatures.

But a France-led group in western Europe, including Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, has held up the deal, largely because of the treatment of the opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, jailed in 2011 on corruption charges in a case the European Court of Human Rights recently labelled illegal and politically motivated.

Ms Grybauskaite said she believed the hold-up is a mistake and has begun lobbying her counterparts to sign the pact in Vilnius and to push off fights over the rule of law to the ratification process.

“The Tymoshenko case has become a symbol of the human rights situation in Ukraine, the quality of legal reforms, the quality of democracy, selective justice – all of these things are concentrated now in one name,” she said. “Europe needs strategically to make a decision not to be jeopardised by one or two people while these people became symbolic.”

Vilnius is walking a fine line in pushing for a Ukrainian deal by November. Although the EU presidency has diminished in importance since the signing of the 2010 Lisbon treaty, it still plays a vital role in making the EU’s legislative machinery work.

As a result, many Brussels insiders bristle at attempts by national politicians to use the presidency pulpit to advance their own policy agendas. Enda Kenny, the prime minister of Ireland, the outgoing holder of the EU presidency, raised hackles early in his tenure by using the presidency megaphone to advocate for debt relief from bailout lenders.
“It would be a conflict of interest to push only Lithuanian issues,” Ms Grybauskaite acknowledged.

Still, Vilnius has been a constant and energetic thorn in Russia’s side. More than any other EU member, it prodded the European Commission into launching an anti-monopoly case against Gazprom last year amid allegations the Russian gas company was bullying central and eastern European governments into unfair contracts.

There is little sign Ms Grybauskaite will curtail her campaign because of sensitivities in Brussels. Indeed, she warns there are signs the Kremlin may be using Lithuania’s presidency to ramp up its campaign, saying there has been a spike in cyberattacks in Lithuania and signs minority groups are being “artificially activated” by outside forces.
“I of course am not able to say who exactly is making trouble, but trouble is occurring,” she said.

A spokesman for the Russian mission to the EU declined to comment.

Thus far, her bluntness has not been a liability in Brussels. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, singled her out for praise during fraught EU budget negotiations, sparking speculation she could be in line for a top EU job when her term ends next year.

“I’m not even planning my time any more,” she said of her political plans. “I will be where it is necessary, and mainly where it is necessary is with the Lithuanian people.”

**~~Baluarte~~** · 07-08-2013, 01:42 PM

Lithuania looks for alternatives to counter Russia's high gas price

Lithuanian Energy Minister Jaroslaw Neverovič has warned his Russian counterparts that selling gas to the Baltic country at an excessive price is not sustainable, the minister told EurActiv.

Neverovič, a diplomat and banker before taking his ministerial post, said the country paid $500 per thousand cubic metres (tcm) of Russian gas, while Germany paid only $400.

The price Lithuania pays to Gazprom was “one of the highest, if not the highest in the EU,” he said.

Liquefied natural gas is available at lower prices and the planned Lithuanian LNG terminal, to be up and running by the end of 2014, was a “game changer” for the country’s relations with Russian gas exporter Gazprom, Neverovič said.

Shale gas has allowed the United States to stop importing gas and is converting some of its LNG terminals from import to export use, undermining Gazprom's position on the European market.

Shale gas is sold at spot prices, while Gazprom’s prices remain tied to the cost of oil and are negotiated in long-term contracts. In contrast, Norway, the other major European gas exporter, left this system of indexation and sells its gas at spot prices. As a consequence, in 2012 Norway for the first time outpaced Russia the EU’s main gas supplier.

"I tell Russians the high gas price is not good for them," Neverovič said, saying the policy motivates foreign customers to look for alternatives to Gazprom.

At present, Lithuania is nearly totally dependent on Russian gas. Neverovič said that 20 to 25% of his country’s gas needs will come from the national LNG terminal. Another larger LNG terminal is to be built for the needs of Lithuania and its Balkan neighbours, Latvia and Estonia.

But Neverovič said the trilateral decision-making was slow and the time horizon for the completion of the regional LNG project was “2020 at best”, his country decided to proceed with a national option.

The Lithuanian minister also mentioned other projects, such a gas interconnector with Poland, improving links between the Baltic states, strengthening the gas storage capacity in Latvia and building a gas interconnector between Estonia and Finland.

The minister – whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency through the end of 2013 - also said that Lithuania was working on unbundling its gas system under the EU’s Third Energy Package.

Unbundling would be completed by the end of next year, he said, when Lithuania would have an independent transmission system operator in gas, the same as it is already the case in the electricity sector.

On shale gas, the minister said that Lithuania was of the view that EU member countries were free to develop this resource if they wish so, in conformity with environment legislation. The government had no direct plans to do so but it was useful to know the country’s shale gas potential, he said.

'Energy island'

In the electricity sector, Neverovič mentioned ongoing projects to connect the electricity systems of Lithuania and Sweden, the Nordbalt project, a planned submarine power cable between Klaipėda in Lithuania and Nybro in Sweden, as well as a 160-km 400 kV alternating current with Poland.

Lithuania’s electricity grid is still interconnected with the old Soviet system and is referred to as an "energy island' inside the EU. The country plans to synchronise the transmission network with that of the Union’s ENTSO-E system by 2016.

Neverovič said his country was 60% dependent on electricity imports from other countries, the biggest part coming from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, and from Belarus.

The nuclear project, he said, was in a “state of reflection”. A majority of participants in a non-binding referendum held in October 2012 rejected the construction of a new nuclear power plant.

The minister said, however, that the government saw “room for nuclear” in the country’s energy mix.

Asked if the new government, in which a pro-Russian party is represented, has made any changes in its energy policy with respect to the former centre-right cabinet, known for its staunch anti-Russian positions, he said:

“I wouldn’t say that our coalition government or one of the parties is more, or less, pro-Russian. [But] we can see a more constructive approach from our partners’ side, and I think that’s what we need.”

**Thelema** · 07-08-2013, 01:44 PM

Do we have influence in the East?

**glass** · 07-08-2013, 01:46 PM

At present, Lithuania is nearly totally dependent on Russian gas. Neverovič said that 20 to 25% of his country’s gas needs will come from the national LNG terminal. Another larger LNG terminal is to be built for the needs of Lithuania and its Balkan neighbours, Latvia and Estonia.