OREANDA-NEWS. March 6, 2008. The signatures will be submitted to the Lithuanian Parliament.

The head of the United Council of Russian-speaking Citizens of Lithuania Alexander Lependin says that the group consists of representatives of lots of trade unions having offices in all cities of Lithuania. So, there will be no problem with collecting the signatures.

Lependin says that the statement of European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs that Lithuania will not be able to attain postponement of the shutdown of the 2nd unit of Ignalina NPP. When entering the European Union, Lithuania pledged to shut down the reactor in 2009 and was given 529mln EUR for that purpose. In 2007–2013 Lithuania will get additional 837mln EUR for implementing the Ignalina program. Lependin says that this is a statement by an irresponsible person who does not realize the difficulty of the situation. Instead of coming and discussing the problem now that referendum is possible, person supervising the whole EU energy sector makes such statements.

Prime Minister of Lithuania Gediminas Kirkilas said that, if the President ratified the amended law on nuclear energy, Lithuania would be able to start negotiations for continuing the operation of Ignalina NPP until a new plant was built.

Meanwhile, some forces are conducting actions of protest and are urging the President to put a veto on the law.

The opposition deputies refused to vote on the amendments. Before the voting the ruling coalition enlisted the support of the formerly opposition party New Union led by the ex speaker of the parliament Arturas Paulauskas. The party began supporting the Government while Paulauskas was appointed as environment protection minister. Lithuanian media qualified that step as "payment for loyalty." NU’s support would hardly suffice for pushing the amendments were it not for the opposition Labor Party (led by Viktor Uspasskikh, who is now under home arrest on suspicion of financial machinations) which quite unexpectedly voted for the bill.

To remind, the 2nd unit of Ignalina NPP is to be stopped in 2009 on the insistance of the EU. The Europeans claim that it is not safe even though the plant’s closure will put Lithuania in a fix. The new plant will cost the country a pretty penny and will be ready by 2015, at earliest.

On Feb 12 President of Lithuania ratified the amended law on nuclear energy.