Brussels, 03/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - The joint EU-Lithuania parliamentary committee met in Vilnius last week, where it called on the EU to give "substantial" financial aid to Lithuania (without going into detail) to enable the country to deal with the long-term impact of shutting down the Ignalina nuclear power station. This one-off aid would be in addition to the pre-accession aid that has already been earmarked for Lithuania and should not be subtracted from the aid Lithuania would receive from the Structural Funds (the Cohesion Fund and regional aid) once it joins, insist the MPs and MEPs. Against this background the Committee welcomed the recent European Commission proposal to provide EUR 245 million in aid in 2004-2006 for the first phase of shutting down Ignalina. In a 1999 arrangement (made shortly before the opening of accession negotiations with the EU) the Lithuanian government pledged to close the first Ignalina reactor by 2005. The EU insists the second reactor be closed down (in other words the entire power station) by the end of 2009. Lithuania argues that this timetable can only be stuck to if the EU bears the enormous technical, environmental, social and energy costs of shutting the power station, estimated at several billion euros by 2020. The Lithuanian parliament recently adopted a negotiating mandate requiring the government to negotiate a complete shutdown of Ignalina between 2009 and 2015.