Green Environment Minister Ville Niinistö said 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. Rosatom is a Russian state-owned nuclear power construction company.
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.
He pointed out that the Czech Republic had rejected a bid by Rosatom to build a nuclear power plant and that Britain is also re-evaluating possible cooperation with Rosatom in light of the crisis in Ukraine.
Niinistö also called for a national programme to increase the use of home-grown renewable energy.
