Lietuva in brief - 2010-01-06

For nearly 10 years Lithuania has been building electrical connections with Sweden and Poland to make energy cheaper and ensure energy independence. However, we are building them only in words. In reality, no single connection has even been started. The Ignalina power plant is shut down. “There are no connections yet. The European money is already allocated to the electricity bridge with Sweden. The connections with Poland have not even been promised. And the Poles themselves show little interest because of the uncertain future of Lithuanian nuclear power,” said Rimantas Sinkevicius, deputy head of the Seimas’ Nuclear Energy Commission. According to him, even the interconnection of electric networks with Sweden is planned no earlier than 2015.

As President Dalia Grybauskaite signed the state and the SoDra budgets for 2010 last December, she also requested the government to commit to compensate for the reduction of old-age pensions and pensions for the disabled, reports ELTA. Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said the compensation would be started as soon as the government announced the end of the crisis. “Seimas commissioned the Social Ministry to prepare reimbursement arrangements by July 1, 2010. At the end of the crisis, the government will start compensating pensions in a way that will not increase the state budget deficit or the state debt,” said Kubilius. According to the transitional law on benefits recalculation, pensions and other benefits are only being reduced for a period of two years. The prime minister however claims that he cannot guarantee that the crisis will end in two years.