As part of proceedings of the Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Conference of the Baltic Sea States, which takes place these days in Svetlogorsk of the Kaliningrad region, there has passed a presentation ТBaltic NPP Р a Contribution in the Development of Energy Systems of the Baltic Sea RegionУ.

The conference was held under the guidance of Head of the engineering team of Baltic NPP of JSC Inter RAO UES, Maxim Kozlov, and General Director of JSC Baltic NPP, Sergey Buchelnikov, and Research Assistant of JSC SPbAEP, Lydia Blinova, delivered a report ТEnvironmental Monitoring in the Area of Baltic NPP Construction SiteУ.

The proceedings were attended by the representatives of the national and regional parliaments of the Baltic Sea region, international parliamentary organizations and NGOs, including representatives of the State Duma of RF and the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of RF. The delegation was headed by Valentina Pivnenko Р First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for the Regional Policy and the North and Far East Affairs, Chairman of PCBSS.

According to Maxim Kozlov, Baltic NPP, which is under construction in Neman district of the Kaliningrad region, not only will reliably provide this exclave with energy, where the energy consumption is growing faster than in Russia at an average, but also will allow to export some power to neighboring countries.

In the Baltic Sea region, even under the most optimistic scenario of its development, by 2020, according to experts, there will have felt a lack of electric power, especially after decommissioning by Germany all of its nuclear power plants.

He marked that there was found a consortium of consultants (the International Engineering Company WorleyParsons would deal with technical consulting; the International Law Company Norton Rose Р with legal consulting; Societe Generale (SG CFA) Р with investment consulting), which had already developed the banking feasibility study Р the primary document for attracting partners.

Maxim Kozlov expanded on possibilities of power transfer from Baltic NPP to the European countries. Lydia Blinova, in her turn, responding the questions from the audience, drew their attention to the fact that Baltic NPP under construction met the requirements of the international safety standards that was recognized by experts of various countries, including IAEA. The project has passed stress test taking into account external and natural influences.



Lydia Blinova told that monitoring of the environment in the area of construction of Baltic NPP had been started prior to the construction, and was on progress by the relevant regulatory bodies.

Summing up the proceedings, Valentina Pivnenko thanked the authors of the presentation and offered to the parliamentarians in the case of having additional questions to contact the Standing Committee, which in turn, would address them to Rosatom State Corporation to establish a permanent constructive dialogue on all matters of mutual interest. According to her opinion, the members of the Standing Committee made sure that Baltic NPP was necessary not only for the sustainable development of the Kaliningrad region, but also for the whole Baltic Sea region.  

In January, 1991 in Helsinki (Finland) there was held the first Parliamentary Conference on Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region. In 1999 it was renamed into the Parliamentary Conference of the Baltic Sea. The objectives of PCBS were: close cooperation between the national and regional parliaments of the Baltic Sea region; cooperation with the Council of the Baltic Sea States and other governmental organizations and NGOs of the region; initiation and direction of the political activity in the Baltic Sea  region, etc. The statuses of permanent members have: Germany, Denmark, Island, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, as well as 5 interparliamentary organizations (the Baltic Assembly, European Parliament of the European Council, Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Safety and Cooperation in Europe, and Northern Council).

27 international parliamentary organizations and NGOs (the Interparliamentary Union, Interparliamentary Assembly of States Р the members of CIS, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Standing Committee of parliamentarians of the Arctic region, Russian North-West Parliamentary Association, Subregional Conference of the Baltic Sea States and others) have the status of observers. It operates on the basis of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliamentary Conference and Standing Committee (1999), which are updated at the annual conferences (last time in 2007). PCBSS takes place once a year (usually in August-September). The working body is the Standing Committee of PCBSS.