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Ecological situation in Nikel very disappointing – Carl Bildt

Nikel, Carl Bildt

Sweden and Norway are very disappointed with the ecological situation in the Russian town of Nikel, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said to a Russian radio station.

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- Norway and Sweden gave Russia reasonably large amounts of money in the 90’ies to eliminate the problems, Bildt told the radio station Ekho Moskvy. – I am very disappointed that nothing has been done in the last 15 years.

-The situation there is terrible, both for the people living in Nikel, and for the environment in general, he added.

Mr. Bildt saw the effect the plant in Nikel has on the environment with his own eyes in October 2009, when he and his Norwegian colleague Jonas Gahr Støre made a short stop in Nikel on their way from Kirkenes, Norway, to a Barents Council meeting in Murmansk Murmansk.

The Swedish Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt are in Moscow these days for meetings with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports.

Read also: Moscow welcomes Fredrik Reinfeldt

In November 2009 the Norwegian Government Pension Fund’s council of ethics decided to exclude the Russian mining and metallurgical giant Norilsk Nikel from the fund’s investment portfolio, stating that the company’s factories are afflicting environmental damages which clashes with the fund’s guidelines, as BarentsObserver reported.

Norilsk Nikel’s smelter in Nikel along with the roasting plant in nearby  Zapolyarny in 2008 emissioned near 100 thousand tons of sulphur dioxide. That is five times more than the entire Norwegian emissions of sulphur dioxide.