EU sends clear signal to Belarus over Astravets NPP - Lithuanian president's adviser
The European Union has expressed solidarity with Lithuania over a nuclear plant that Belarus is building close to the border, thus sending an important and clear message to Minsk, Nerijus Aleksiejūnas, an adviser to President Dalia Grybauskaitė, said on Tuesday.
“In their speeches on the day of the EaP summit, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk stressed that that was a problem of all EU countries and special attention would be given to the issue. It was a very important message to Belarus,” Nerijus Aleksiejūnas told Ziniu Radijas.
Belarus is obliged to demonstrate openness in matters of nuclear and conduct stress tests, he added.
On November 24, Jean-Claude Juncker told journalists about the bloc’s ‘full solidarity’ with Vilnius.
“We do not consider this issue being a bilateral issue between Lithuania and a neighbouring country – it’s a European issue. We will follow this very closely,” he stressed.
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Lithuania has repeatedly criticized the construction of the nuclear power plant 50 kilometers from Vilnius and encouraged the rest of the countries of the United Europe to not buy electricity from the future NPP.
Our neighbour is not only concerned about the proximity of the station to Vilnius, but also with a number of emergencies during the NPP construction. Among the emergencies are a reactor vessel incident, when it fell during the transportation, the collapse of the concrete structure at the site between the reactors. Our channel was the first to report on the incident. Before the official request of the Lithuanian side, representatives of the Belarusian NPP denied this information.
