During a meeting with Neilas Tankevičius, the Lithuanian government's negotiator on the Ignalina closure funding, in Madrid on Tuesday, Spanish Secretary of State for European Affairs Inigo Mendez de Vigo promised that Spain would support Lithuania in discussions on this issue at the EU Council, it said.
Tankevičius underlined Lithuania's concern over the European Commission's proposal to allocate less funding in the 2014-2020 EU financial program than needed to decommission Ignalina plant.
Lithuania also believes that the proposed financing period is too short.
The executive body of the EU made a proposal last November to provide 210 million euros for the closure of Ignalina plant until 2017, while the government had asked for 770 million euros. Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius then said that the proposal was not acceptable as it did not comply with the commitments set out in Lithuania's accession treaty.
The Commission proposed to provide a total of 500 million euros to support the decommissioning of nuclear power plants in three member states, with 210 million euros to be given to Lithuania and 105 million euros to Slovakia until 2017, and 185 million euros to Bulgaria until 2020.
