News

Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs disagrees with openly misleading statements which were made by Belarusian representatives on 23 March this year in the Belarusian media, claiming that Lithuania avoided opening a dialogue on the environmental impact assessment procedures regarding the construction of a nuclear power plant (NPP) in Belarus.

Belarus avoids conducting a full environmental impact assessment in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention).

Moreover, Belarus has to reply to the questions of interested parties and then organise public hearings in Lithuania, and bilateral consultations, rather than apparently shunning responsibility for the backlog.

Competent Belarusian institutions have failed so far to respond to the questions of Lithuania, and Belarusian officials, who are claiming that Lithuania does not cooperate, are deliberately misleading the international community.

Lithuania has submitted a complaint to the Implementation Committee of the UN Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention) in June 2011. Lithuania finds that Belarus only declared to, but actually failed to meet the Espoo Convention requirements.

This year on 20-21 March in Geneva, the Implementation Committee of the UN Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention) heard into Lithuania’s claim against Belarus. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes that all the interpretations by responsible Belarusian officials demonstrate lack of competence, because the process has not been complemented.

It should be noted that already in January 2009, Belarus started preparatory work for building the nuclear power plant at the construction site in Astraviets, only 50 km away from the capital of Lithuania. However, Belarus invited Lithuania to participate in the environmental impact assessment process only in August 2009. Lithuania believes that this is a rough violation of the Espoo Convention, as it sets out that the construction of the object that has a transboundary impact on other countries should begin only after the completion of the environmental impact assessment, after answering questions of impacted countries and after organizing public hearings.

Therefore, Lithuania once again reiterates that only transparent activities of Belarusian officials and open cooperation without trying to conceal information from the international community about nuclear energy projects in Belarus can help to encourage mutual trust and international cooperation.