On Thursday 22 March, Prime Minister Māris Kučinskis met with Jean-Claude Junker, President of the European Commission and Prime Minister of Estonia Jüri Ratas, President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite, as well as Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki in Brussels. During the meeting, the officials discussed the synchronization of the Baltic power grids with Europe.
The EC President and the Heads of State and Government of the Baltic States and Poland agreed that the year 2018 will be a decisive one, and expressed readiness to reach a political agreement by June 2018 on the preferred option for synchronizing the Baltic electricity grids with continental Europe. The successful implementation of the project will not be possible without financial support from the Connecting Europe Facility.
When implementing the synchronization process, it is essential to choose the most trusted scenario that can provide the stability of the system at the lowest cost. Therefore, the implementation of studies launched in this area should not be delayed in order to carefully assess the impact of synchronization scenarios and all costs, including not only capital costs, but also long-term costs and impact on tariffs.
M.Kučinskis pointed out that Latvia expects that, on the basis of such studies, it will be possible to reach a political agreement by mid-year on the most appropriate synchronization scenario and technical execution to ensure that the project can still be submitted under the final round of funding of the Connecting Europe Facility in this multiannual financial perspective.
“It is equally important that the funding for the full implementation of the project is available also under the next European Union’s multiannual financial framework,” said M. Kučinskis.
Andrejs Vaivars
Press Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mob.: 29228678
E-mail: Andrejs.Vaivars@mk.gov.lv