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

"The European Council underlines the importance of ensuring nuclear safety of the Belarusian nuclear power plant Astravyets and invites the Commission to investigate possible measures preventing commercial electricity imports from third countries’ nuclear facilities that do not fulfil EU recognized safety levels," they said in the conclusions of the December 10-11 summit. 

The sentence was included into the conclusions at the initiative of Lithuania which is seeking a broader consensus on a blockade of Belarus' Astravyets nuclear power plant. 

President Gitanas Nauseda welcomed the conclusions as a political decision of principle to bar access to the common market for commercial electricity from Astravyets. 

"It is a regional, important and principled decision not to buy electricity that we have managed to have included into a really high-level document," he said in a comment. 

Lithuania says the Astravyets plant, which is located close to its shared border with Belarus, fails to meet international safety and environmental standards, an allegation that Minsk denies.

There have been media reports recently that the plant's emergency cooling system was damaged during hydraulic tests and that several voltage transformers exploded.

Minsk denies that any incidents have occurred.