The sites for two new nuclear power plants, in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave and in Belarus, were selected with no environmental assessment and without consulting neighboring countries, Lithuania's president said on Monday.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite made the accusations at a meeting with the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, who is on a visit to Vilnius.
"The president deplored the fact that sites for these power plants were selected without having clear-cut criteria, without conducting an environmental impact assessment and without consulting the neighboring countries more extensively," the Lithuanian president's office said in press release.
Russia is building the Baltic Nuclear Power Plant in its Kaliningrad exclave and has agreed with Minsk to construct a nuclear plant in Belarus.
Lithuania, which became an electricity importer after closing its Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant on December 31 as agreed with the European Union, plans to build a new plant in Visaginas.
According Grybauskaite, it is in everyone's interest that nuclear power projects in the Baltic region meet international standards of nuclear safety and environmental protection as provided for in the Espoo Convention, which requires countries to
of the impact on the environment and international consultation in early stages of project planning, which may impact on the environment in several states..
"Even the slightest deviation from these standards would compromise nuclear energy in the region," the president said.
Russia plans to double the electricity it generates from nuclear energy by 2020, with a raft of new plants planned, and has also put great emphasis on building new nuclear facilities abroad.
VILNIUS, June 14 (RIA Novosti)
