CFP In Action: The Case of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant

Ross Hendin is Principal of Hendin Consultants and Senior Advisor to the Canadian office of a leading multi-national PR firm. With strategic communication experience in over 20 countries around the world, Ross specializes in high-stakes communication and marketing strategies in a number of industries, including energy. Ross will be regularly contributing to Corporate Foreign Policy.com, here pointing out the geopolitical dynamics behind one of the more interesting case studies of the last few years.

Ignalina is a city in eastern Lithuania, made famous for its proximity to the power plant in nearby Visaginas. This power plant has produced 70% of the power for the country, as well as supplying power to neighboring states Estonia, Latvia, and Poland. Until very recently, the imminent decommissioning of this plant, and the need for a new one, has not been front and center in the eyes of the European energy community. That is quickly changing.

Notwithstanding the plant’s passing safety regulations, part of Lithuania’s accession to the EU includes the de-commissioning of the plant, which is a similar model to the one one used at the Chernobyl power plant. France’s state-owned nuclear power company, Areva, was said to have lobbied Brussels for this provision in the Lithuanian EU accession agreement, presumably to create new work for themselves.

The Ignalina plant needs to be closed by the end of the year, raising two questions:

1) Who will build the new plant for the new nuclear power plant company that has been set up to deal with this?

2) What will Lithuania, and the other countries, do for power in the meantime?

France, who also rely heavily on Nuclear power, have been angling through Areva to get the mandate to build the new plants for some time now. They join many other companies from around the world in being interested in the exceptional potential that the area holds for building nuclear plants, but are alone in the way they are going about trying to win the business.

They are spending time and sponsoring cultural events in Lithuania, they are working behind the scenes and with the media in Poland, and they are making sure that the French / Lithuanian political connection is as strong as possible on this topic.

Other competing corporations don’t seem to be able to find the same support there that Areva has. Presumably they are using channels that are not as effective, or are not sure who the right people are to lobby.

Over the next few months I will be following this story, and will blog about it with an eye to revealing the Areva strategy, showing how the business strategy is not only shaping their corporate foreign policy, but is shaping the countries’ foreign policy as well.

Hendin Consultants is in Toronto and London, UK, and is on the web at www.hendinconsultants.com. Email Ross at ross@hendinconsultants.com.

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