President Dalia Grybauskaitė positively assessed the European Commission's decision to include the integration of the Baltic Energy Market into the European market in the map of EU priorities.

According to the President, the implementation of such projects will ensure energy supply to Lithuania from alternative sources. It will also contribute to creating energy independence for the Baltic States and strengthen energy security across the region.

“This past spring, President Lech Kaczyński and I asked the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso to include energy projects of importance to the Baltic States and the Baltic Sea region – electricity interconnections to Sweden and Poland as well as the Lithuanian–Polish gas pipeline – into the list of EU priority projects. I am very pleased that our joint efforts have already produced tangible results,” the President said.

The European Commission has defined four EU priority corridors in the electricity sector: integration of the Baltic Energy Market into the European market, offshore wind parks in the Northern Seas, interconnections in South Western Europe, and connections in Central Eastern and South Eastern Europe.

In the gas sector, the Baltic Energy Market Integration and connection to Central and South East Europe has also been identified as EU priority corridor.

The financing decisions on concrete EU projects will be made in 2012.