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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Friday, 29.03.2024, 10:58

Kaljulaid: Estonia doesn't intend to buy electricity from Russia

BC, Tallinn, 08.05.2020.Print version
Estonia does not intend to buy electricity directly from Russia and will seek consensus among EU member states for a pollution tax on Russian electricity entering the single market, President Kersti Kaljulaid has said cited LETA/BNS.

"What concerns energy, Estonia is not buying electricity from Russia through any of our nine connections to Russia," the Estonian president told LETA/BNS in an interview.

"Estonia is buying electricity from Nord Pool. And we know that there is indeed Russian electricity on Nord Pool, too, and most of it comes to the Nord Pool market through Finland, some of it through Lithuania itself," she said.


Once the Baltic countries disconnect from the post-Soviet BRELL ring, which also includes Russia and Belarus, and synchronize their power grids with the Continental European system, they will no longer receive electricity from Russia, Kaljulaid noted.  


According to the president, Estonia supports the European Commission's initiatives to tax electricity imports from third countries in a bid to protect the single market from dumping.

"Now when we move away from the BRELL network, from the Russian electricity grid to the Central European grid, nobody will invest into the back-to-back converters necessary to keep buying electricity from Russia," the president told  during the video call from Tallinn.  


"It will not happen in Estonia, in Latvia, and, of course, not in Lithuania, because there simply isn't any economic reason behind it," she said.


"So automatically, by having decided that we will move to the Central European electricity grid, we have taken the decision that the three Baltic states will not directly buy electricity from the Russian market. This is a long time decision. We are moving ahead technically to implement this project." 


"What concerns Russian electricity on Nord Pool, (European Commission President) Ursula von der Leyen has been very clear: there must not be dumping on the European energy market, dumping by not pricing CO2."


"She has been very clear: the CO2 price needs to be added on the border to import the electricity, otherwise, we cannot go green with our energy production and consumption."  

"And when this happens, there will be no problem of Russian energy dumping our European market. This is something which I think will be collectively achieved as the European Union. But individually, Estonia is not buying directly and is not planning to start buying electricity directly from Russia, wherever it comes from," Kaljulaid said.


Electricity imports from Russia are an important issue for Lithuania as it tries to block market access for energy produced at Belarus' Astravyets nuclear power plant which Vilnius considers as unsafe. 


Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis earlier this week reiterated his call on his Latvian and Estonian counterparts to sign a political declaration on restricting unsafe and "dirty" electricity imports.


The Lithuanian prime minister proposes to sign such a political declaration by the end of May.

Riga has so far refused to sign the document. The Latvian government has decided to switch to electricity trade with Russia for technical and economic reasons once Lithuania halts imports from Belarus. This may open up access for Astravyets electricity to the common Baltic market via Russia.






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