News

The issue of Ostrovets nuclear power plant (NPP) attracted great attention of the  international community during the Meeting of the Parties of the Espoo Convention held on 13-16 June in Minsk. Despite intense and difficult discussions the meeting in Minsk concluded without additional decisions with regard to Ostrovets NPP and other cases under the Convention framework. This means that the decision adopted during the Meeting of the Parties of the Espoo Convention of 2014 declaring that Belarus violated four articles of the Convention while implementing the Ostrovets NPP project remains valid.

During the meeting, the issues regarding the Ostrovets NPP project and its conformity to the Convention provisions were unanimously raised by the EU and non-governmental organisations (such as Greenpeace, Bankwatch, and EcoHome).

This Espoo Convention meeting resulted in the adoption of the Minsk Declaration encouraging the Parties to evaluate the aspects of climate change and sustainable development in when developing economic activities; the approval of good practice recommendations in the context of nuclear energy projects; and in the selection of the Espoo Convention institutions officials for the new term until 2020. However, important decisions with regard to the Parties' conformity to the Convention provisions (i.e. decisions in disputes between the countries with regard to the application of the Espoo Convention in the economic activity) were reviewed, but not adopted.

"Unfortunately, Minsk failed to be the place of agreement between the Espoo Convention Parties. The adopted decisions are significant from the organisational point of view, however, the most important decisions regarding the Parties' disputes over the Convention implementation in practice were not adopted," – the Minister of Foreign Affairs L. Linkevičius expressed his regret.

Since no decisions were adopted with regard to the Parties' conformity to the Convention provisions during the Meeting of the Parties in Minsk, it was resolved to organise an Extraordinary Meeting of the Parties next year. Usually the Meetings of the Parties of the Espoo Convention are held every three years.