EU nuclear fund plan unacceptable: Lithuania

(VILNIUS) - Lithuania on Thursday slammed a funding plan from Brussels to help it decommission a Soviet-era nuclear reactor whhich was shut down in 2009 under the terms of its European Union entry four years earlier.

"The current proposal is not acceptable for us, as it does not comply with the commitments enshrined in the accession treaty of Lithuania," Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said in a statement.

Earlier Thursday the European Commission -- the EU's executive body -- offered Lithuania 210 million euros in decommissioning funds from 2014 until 2017.

Lithuanian officials had said they wanted over 700 million euros for 2014-2020.

Kubilius underlined that Lithuania's EU accession treaty had noted that the plant's closure was "an exceptional burden not commensurate with the economic strength of the country".

"The EU committed to provide adequate financial assistance for the decommissioning" he added.

Brussels' offer was part of a 500-million-euro package that also included funding to decommission communist-era plants in Bulgaria and Slovakia.

Under a previous 2.85-billion-euro funding deal running until 2013, Lithuania's share has been almost 1.37 billion euros.

Lithuania's only nuclear power plant, a 1980s facility located near Ignalina in the country's northeast, went offline on December 31, 2009.

The plant provided 70 percent of the electricity in this nation of three million, which has had to boost its use of gas-fired power stations as a result.

Lithuania, which split from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1990, still relies on Russia for all its gas.

Its ties with its communist-era master have been rocky since independence, and over this year it has been locking horns with Russian gas giant Gazprom over pricing.

In another Soviet hangover, Lithuania lacks power-supply links with Western Europe, and 60 percent of its electricity now comes from Russia.

Lithuania tried and failed to convince Brussels to let it keep its nuclear plant open until a replacement it plans to build with neighbours Latvia, Estonia and Poland was ready.

Talks have begun with Japanese-US conglomerate Hitachi GE on constructing the new plant, but it is not expected to come online until 2020.