Baltic States – CIS, Energy, Gas, Legislation, Lithuania

The draft law on the subject was presented in a news conference in the Seimas by Elder of the Labour Party political group Vytautas Gapsys and former economy minister, member of the group Kestutis Dauksys. The political group claims that the draft law will pose a serious challenge to the Seimas, writes LETA/ELTA.

"During this tenure of the Seimas, we have presented 2,701 draft law and proposal, and now, on the last days of this session of the Seimas, we are presenting a proposal that is very important to Lithuania. The draft law would free Lithuania's energy system from the dependence on intermediaries, therefore the state and the consumers would gain at least 200 million litas (58 million euros) per year and would be able to control relations with supplier properly," Gapsys claimed. In his view, the draft law would open up new opportunities in negotiating over gas prices. That means that the country would be able to directly conduct negotiations with gas suppliers or producers.

"Direct agreements are always more beneficial to both sides, thus naturally Lithuania's interests would be represented better than any time before. The end user would receive gas for a much favourable price than at present because we simply overpay for gas by buying it from intermediaries who have financial interests in this process," the MP said.