Baltic States – CIS, Belarus, Energy, Lithuania, Nuclear power plant

The Ministry expresses concern about deliberately misleading information released by the Belarus news agency "Belta", which states that Lithuania, purportedly, does not object to the report on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the future nuclear power plants in Belarus, informs LETA/ELTA.

"Lithuania points out that the process of EIA is not yet completed because the country has not yet received any answers from Belarus about the nuclear power plant project," says Foreign Ministry's report. Lithuania is most of all interested in the reasons why Belarus wants to build the plant in Astravets, only 50 kilometres away from Vilnius.

Under the provisions of the international Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, Belarus has to answer all questions, organize public hearings in Lithuania and arrange bilateral consultations, Foreign Ministry calls Belarus to comply with all provisions of Espoo convention. The convention provides that final decisions of the construction site must be made and the work started only after having harmonized EIA documents with neighbouring countries. Belarus submitted a complemented EIA report only in mid-February, 2011, while Lithuania's official position regarding the Belarus nuclear power plant EIA documentation was presented in May 7, 2010.