Prime Minister: Finland to Continue Nuclear Cooperation With Russia Despite Sanctions

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RIA Novosti, PUBLISHED 16.09.2014

Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb has stated that EU sanctions against Russia will not affect Finland's cooperation with Russia's state-run nuclear corporation Rosatom on the building of the Hanhikivi 1 nuclear plant, Finnish broadcaster Yle reports.

"I think nuclear power is still such a serious thing that it is not advisable to mix it with power politics," Stubb was quoted as saying by Yle on Sunday.

According to the Finnish minister, cooperation with Russia's Rosatom will not hurt Finland's international reputation.

Stubb noted that nuclear power supplies about half of Ukraine's electricity and that Rosatom is its main provider. "If we look at [Rosatom's] activities, there have been no problems whatsoever," he stated.

Finnish nuclear company Fennovoima Ltd and Rusatom Overseas, a subsidiary of Russia's nuclear giant Rosatom, signed a plant supply contract in December 2013.

Rosatom is set to build and part-own a 1,200 megawatt pressurized water reactor at the Hanhikivi 1 plant in Northern Finland. According to the companies' schedule, the nuclear power plant will begin producing electricity in 2024.

A new round of Western sanctions against Moscow over its alleged role in the Ukrainian crisis came into force on September 12. The sanctions complicate access to EU and US credit for a number of key Russian banks and oil and defense companies and ban the provision of technical and other assistance to Russian oil companies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that using sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy is not effective and never yields any results, warning that sanctions cause certain damage to those using this measure.

Topics: NPP, Europe, Finland

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