On Friday 21 October, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, Estonia's Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas and Finland's Prime Minister Juha Sipilä were present in Brussels at the signature of an agreement for an EU subsidy of €187 million to build the planned gas interconnection linking Estonia and Finland under the Baltic Sea, the Baltic Connector.
On 19 October, the Estonian gas network manager Elering and the Finnish public enterprise Baltic Connector OY signed a cooperation agreement to build the undersea section of the Baltic Connector, which will link the gas transmission systems of Estonia and Finland.
The Baltic Connector will be made up of three sections: a land trunk of 22 km on Finnish soil, an undersea trunk of 80 km and a land trunk of 50 km on the Estonian territory. Once built and up and running in 2020, it will have the capacity to carry 7.2 million cubic meters of gas per day, with flows in both directions.
The aim of this infrastructure is principally to put an end to the energy isolation of Finland, which depends heavily on a single supplier of gas, Russia.
Once completed, the Baltic Connector and the future gas pipeline between Poland and Lithuania will allow Finland and the Baltic states to diversify their sources and channels of gas supplies, which will help to defend them against any supply interruptions.
The total cost of the Baltic Connector project has been put in the region of €250 million, but it is covered by a 75% grant under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
"Today's signature shows that the European Union delivers and unites. It is the result of close cooperation and a proof of true European solidarity", Juncker stated.
Between now and 2020, a total of €5.35 billion will be invested in priority European projects under the CEF. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)