By Ksenia Rabchinskaya: Solving the Belarusian-Lithuanian issue regarding Lithuania’s claims against the construction of the nuclear power plant in Ostrovets has been postponed to the next meeting of the Convention, which will be held in Geneva in 1.5 years.
The fact that the 7th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Espoo Convention will be held in Minsk was known as early as in 2015. The large-scale event brought together over 200 international experts to discuss important documents on climate change and achieving the sustainable development goals.
The Convention obliges the parties to notify and consult each other when planning large-scale projects, such as nuclear power plants, chemical plants, large oil and gas pipelines, powerful thermal power plants and other enterprises. The document was adopted in 1991, ratified by 45 countries six years later.
The four-day session in Minsk featured tens of discussions and bilateral meetings, culminating in the so-called country issues, one of them concerning Lithuania's claims against the construction of the Belarusian NPP. The Lithuanian Parliament has recently called the Belarusian NPP a threat to its national security. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry believes that Lithuania’s stance is due to a desire to divert attention from problems associated with the decommissioning of the Ignalina NPP and make Belarus responsible for its own strategic miscalculations in the energy sector. All of that is despite positive assessments from the IAEA and the World Association of NPP Operators. Prior to the launch of NPP construction, as enshrined in the ESPO Convention, Belarus carried out all the necessary consultations with its neighboring countries and sent documents to other states that had expressed interest.
The session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Espoo Convention resulted in the adoption of a Minsk declaration. Besides, new representatives of the countries were elected to the Convention’s bodies. As a result, Belarus has become a member of three committees at once.