Lithuanian MFA Discusses Belarusian NPP With Vice-President Of European Commission For Energy

Lithuania will continue to strive for close dialogue with experts of the European Commission on the issue of the Astravets NPP.

Charter97.org has learnt this from the press-center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania.

On October 16, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius met with the Vice-President of the European Commission for Energy, Maroš Ševčovič. During the meeting, the Minister thanked for supporting the synchronization project of the Baltic countries, was pleased to reach a regional agreement on the beginning of its implementation, and discussed further steps.

“Lithuania and other Baltic States are starting the real work on the preparation of a project to synchronize the Baltic countries with the European continental power grid and desynchronize with the IPS network. We hope that the European Commission will notify all members of the IPS network accordingly,” said Linas Linkevičius.

The Minister thanked the European Commission for carrying out the process of testing the unsafe Astravets NPP under construction for resistance to external threats (“stress tests”) and the proposed recommendations.

“The evaluation and recommendations made by the European experts are very important. It is necessary for the European Commission to participate and ensure the full implementation of these recommendations, especially if Belarus, ignoring the opinion of the international community, decides to start operating this facility, ” said Linas Linkevičius. He stressed that Lithuania hopes for a particularly close dialogue with the Commission’s experts on this issue, noting that the qualitative implementation of the recommendations of the EU stress tests should become a good EU practice and a precedent in the future.