Helsinki, 19/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - The EU must conserve nuclear power among its sources of energy supply if it does not want to become a "fossil monster", declared Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Liiponen on Monday (quoted by the Financial Times). Agreeing with the European Commission, but running up against Germany and Sweden which are on the path to a gradual abandonment of nuclear power, Mr. Liiponen attacked the latter, accusing them of in some way practising "energy imperialism" towards the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe which are being forced to close down nuclear plants based on the technology of the Soviet era. He also warned Europe against excessive dependency on Russian natural gas, warning: "if all Western Europe is now counting on natural gas coming mostly from Russia, what will happen?. The price will go up". Fearing being dependent on imported electricity, Finland is currently the only country of the EU to be envisaging building a new nuclear power plant. It still operates a nuclear reactor with Soviet technology that Liiponen qualified as the safest in the world".