Latvia has been severely damaged by its energy dependence on Russia and now needs swift and decisive action to achieve self–sufficiency in the field of energy, said the Conservative party’s candidate for Prime Minister’s post in the 14th Saeima elections, Minister of Justice Jānis Bordāns.
According to this principle, the government must fundamentally review the concept of energy development, which Bordāns sees as one of the primary tasks if he becomes Prime Minister after the Saeima elections. «Our energy industry is currently built on Latvenergo and gas alone, (..) we have to think about energy diversification and new sources of energy production,» emphasizes the politician.
Minister of Justice emphasizes that the state, primarily the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Economics (ME), must create appropriate conditions for investments in energy as well.
Investments should be made not only by state and local companies, but the entry of large international corporations with the most modern technologies should also be supported. The Conservative party’s Prime Minister’s candidate emphasizes that it is also important for Latvia to cooperate with Great Britain and the United States, bringing in energy investment from the country’s strategic partners.
«We do not see that MoE would have established a strong team of experts, that would directly deal with energy related questions. Then there can be no result either. I can describe the current policy with only two words – state treason,» says the Minister of Justice, by treason meaning negligence in the energy sector.
Bordāns points out that Latvia is behind Lithuania and Estonia in wind energy because «there are no ready projects, there are only talks».
The politician also questions why the Prime Minister and the MoE offer to make state investments only in this area, creating a state company through JSC Latvenergo and JSC Latvijas Valsts meži. In his opinion, investments should also be made in other areas of energy, noting that Latvia is also lagging behind in the creation of solar battery parks.
Conservative party supports the creation of a liquefied natural gas terminal, which would make sense only if it is connected to the Inčukalns gas storage.
«In my opinion, the evaluation of terminal projects has been delayed, but it is not clear why. You can look in the minutes of government meetings. As soon as energy was discussed, I expressed the need to address the issue of independent gas supplies. Already when there was no war. We had also included this point in the government’s declaration, but no answers were given to our questions. It was only said that it is not relevant,» Bordāns draws attention to the inactions committed so far.