Warning: (from left) presidents Arnold Ruutel, Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Valdas Adamkus
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Baltic leaders warn of pipe threat
The Presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have called for broader European Union involvement in a Baltic gas pipeline, which they said posed a potentially catastrophic environmental threat to their region.
The three Baltic leaders, meeting in Estonia, said that the Russia-to-Germany pipeline would be built upon a seabed that had been littered with tons of dumped chemical weapons, the Baltic News Service reported.
Any mistakes made during construction could release the chemicals with drastic consequences, they said.
"The construction of the gas supply pipeline is of vital importance to the countries of the region. However, we must draw the attention of the EU and the Scandinavian countries to the potential threats such construction is posing," BNS quoted Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus as saying.
Estonian President Arnold Ruutel said the Baltic Sea was already polluted, BNS reported.
"An extensive area in the south of the Baltic Sea is polluted with chemical weapons," he said.
"Some of them were simply sunk together with the ships after the end of World War II.
"In this respect, most of the danger lies in the strip of 1200 kilometres near the Swedish and the Lithuanian coast where the pipeline is to be constructed."
Ruutel stressed that Brussels and the Baltic states must be closely involved in the construction.
"The public must be given an opportunity to keep a close watch. ... There should be scientists involved," Ruutel said.
"The project must have the participation of the Baltic and EU countries."
In September, then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder rejected criticism by the Polish president of the pipeline deal, worth over 4 billion euros ($4.82 billion), after he and President Vladimir Putin gave it their blessing.
The pipeline, which will ship Siberian gas from Russia to Germany, bypassing Poland and the Baltic states, will be run by a joint venture of state gas monopoly Gazprom, German utility E.on and Wintershall, a unit of German chemical maker BASF.