Nuclear deal threatens Finnish govt
Finland's coalition partner, Green party, opposes nuclear power plant joint venture with Russia, prior to final decision.
ANKARA
by Murat Temizer
Finland's Green party, one partner in its five-party coalition, is threatening to leave the government on Thursday if other members of the coalition agree to go-ahead with a nuclear power plant project, the party announced this week.
However, leaving the coalition would not bring down the government, but would reduce the government's majority to four seats.
Finnish energy consortium, Fennovoima signed the plant supply contract for the nuclear power plant with a subsidiary of Russia's state nuclear corporation, Rosatom Overseas which is concerned with exports of nuclear power plants - last December.
Initial work on the site has already started, Ksenia Loskutova, Project Support Manager of Rosatom. "A ceremony took place which launched the construction of a 4-kilometer road that will lead from the main road to Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant site on Tuesday" she said.
Loskutova said Rosatom Overseas appreciates the support from the Finnish government and hopes that on Thursday the Finnish government will make a decision in favor of the Hanhikivi project.
"The decision is the matter for the government, we are not involved in politics and it’s expected on Thursday the government will go ahead. If government says yes we will continue, if they say no, we can not proceed" said Tiina Tigerstedt, International Communications Manager of Fennovoima.
Finland has four existing reactors, two boiling water reactors are supplied by Swedish energy company, Asea-Atom and the other two water reactors are supplied by Russia and operated by Finnish energy company Fortum.
"We would like to continue our cooperation with Finland. Control is on the hands of the Finns and the Finnish company is in the process of discussing the issue with Finnish government" said another official from Rosatom.
The Green Party has ten seats in parliament out of 200. In the 2011 election, they received 7.5 percent of the vote.
Fennovoima is a Finnish company whose 66 percent belongs to Finland’s energy company Voimaosakeyhtiö SF and 34 percent of it owned by RAOS Voima Oy which is subsidiary of Rosatom.
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