According to Grybauskaite, this strategic object was the result of the changes in the energy system.
"However, the symbol of our energy independence – a special vessel for the LNG terminal – will arrive to Lithuania this coming autumn after overcoming hostile storms and turbulences created by commissions and instigated by others. This geopolitical project of cooperation between Lithuania, Norway and South Korea, the first in the Baltic region, is the result of historic changes in our energy system," said Grybauskaite.
According to Grybauskaite, the LNG terminal was to end our country's dependence on Russia's gas.
"It is a crowning achievement by the efforts of the whole of Lithuania, making Russian gas – which poses an existential threat – simply needless for Lithuania. In the course of only several years, Lithuania has managed to develop alternatives to both gas and electricity supplies. Next year, in 2015, a power bridge to Sweden will be built, linking Lithuania to Western Europe through electricity networks. It means the end of energy isolation," stated the President of the Republic of Lithuania.
Grybauskaite highlighted that the energy independence was the essential condition for Lithuania's development.
Nevertheless, the President of the Republic of Lithuania said that the institutions responsible for the state's economy failed to adequately manage the energy sector.
According to Grybauskaite, there was still too much of corruption in the country.
"However, the appetite of local energy oligarchs is even more damaging to the country than its disputes with Gazprom. Today corrupt transactions are spread by front men in the ministries of energy and the environment, in local municipalities and apartment associations. Former Rubicon, now-turned-ICOR, has become a predator which controls municipal utilities from the collection of waste to the supply of water and heating. This formation with its non-stop meters is robbing people just as hard as Gazprom whom we have already overpaid a total of LTL 5 billion (EUR 1.4 billion)," said Grybauskaite.
According to the President, curbing abuses by interest groups in the LTL 12 billion (EUR 3.4 billion) energy sector would make Lithuania a competitive and prosperous European nation.
Grybauskaite stated that there was a need to reform the heating sector as well.
"Even though the first independent heat producers have been established, heating and utilities have been segmented, and self-indulgent monopolists as well as their proxy apartment administrators have been reined in, the five-year-long efforts to reduce prices for heating and utilities are still insufficient," said the President.
Grybauskaite highlighted that, in some districts, it was not the municipality that controlled the producers of heat, but the heating oligarchs who set their conditions for local governments and residents.
"Therefore, we should consider very seriously taking part of the heating systems in large cities into public ownership. A single national programme for the heating sector should be finally developed," said the President.
