Eight countries from around the Baltic Sea on June 17 agreed to link up their energy markets in a bid to make them less dependent on outside suppliers such as Russia. The prime ministers of European Union member states Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden and Poland signed an agreement launching a series of projects in Brussels with EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, a statement from the European Commission said.
The EU is keen to make its energy markets more competitive and secure by increasing links between member states. That is especially true in the Baltic region, where Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have almost no electricity or gas ties to the West.
The agreement signed on June 17 launches a series of projects to improve energy links in three main areas: between the Nordic states; from the Baltic states to Sweden, Finland and Poland; and between Poland and Germany. It also calls for more efforts to build alternative natural-gas supplies, especially liquefied natural-gas terminals, which do not rely on gas from a single source.