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Ukraine crisis puts Finnish-Russian nuclear power plant at risk

Pyhäjoki nuclear power plant will be built south of Oulu in northern Finland.

Finland is having second thoughts to Rosatom’s involvement in the planned nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki south of Oulu in northern Finland. Environment Minister Ville Niinistö calls energy cooperation with the Russian company ‘a step back’.

Location

The Finnish government has instructed Fennovoima, owned by around 40 Finnish companies and Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom, to increase local ownership after several investors pulled out of project. The Finnish group, which includes steel maker Outokumpu, has committed to just over 50 percent of the venture, while the government requires a “clear Finnish majority” to be in place by September, Reuters reports.

Cooperating with the Russian nuclear contractor Rosatom would be a step backward in Finland’s attempts to reduce energy dependency on Russia, says Green League party chair and Environment Minister Ville Niinistö. He believes that giving the Russian nuclear plant builder Rosatom a permit to construct a new nuclear power facility in Finland would be strange, given that the rest of the European Union is working to reduce dependency on Russian energy.

Niinistö said that central energy production for domestic purposes should be kept in local hands and that the Fennovoima-Rosatom joint project in Pyhäjoki northwest Finland therefore constituted a major step backwards. The Minister added that the regulation of natural gas deliveries to Ukraine indicated that energy policy was an important foreign policy tool for Russia, according to YLE

A survey carried out in Finland in March after the crisis in Ukraine broke out showed that only a third of the respondents thought the application for building a new nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki should be accepted. Half of the respondents gave a clear no to granting permission to Fennovoima to build the power plant.