LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: EUROPE NEEDS SOLIDARITY IN ENERGY POLICY
On 20 November in Brussels Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas underlined the need for solidarity and diversification in European energy policy.
At the conference “Towards an EU external energy policy to ensure a high level of supply security” organized by the European Commission, Minister Vaitiekūnas said that after the closure of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant Lithuania and the whole Baltic region will face energy shortage.
“Europe’s solidarity and mutual assistance should be the basic principles, when one or another EU Member State faces the problems of oil or gas supply, and the EU should actively involve in solving these problems,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister underlined and mentioned the problem of oil supply to “Mažeikių nafta“.
The President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso in the opening address stated that the European Union needs integrated internal and external energy policy. In this context he mentioned the importance of integration of isolated energy markets.
The EU Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner drew attention to the dependence of the energy sector of the Baltic States on Russia as single energy supplier and stressed the necessity to solve this problem.
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