Belarus to present renewed draft agreement on Espoo Convention to Lithuania soon

The Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry plans to present a renewed draft agreement on implementing the Espoo Convention to Lithuanian colleagues soon, said Alexei Raiman, Deputy Head of the Economic Cooperation and Sustainable Development Office of the Central Office for Multilateral Diplomacy of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, at the press conference in BelTA’s press center on 21 April.

“The Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry is now preparing a renewed draft agreement and I think it will soon be forwarded to the Lithuanian side for the sake of starting the negotiations,” he said. The specialist pointed out that the Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment stipulates only minimal requirements for cooperation between two countries with regard to the transboundary impact of this or that facility. Countries are advised to sign a bilateral agreement to clearly legislate cooperation schemes.

Alexei Raiman remarked: “We expect the Lithuanian side to finally come to understand that bilateral cooperation in radiation safety and environmental protection, including relating to the construction of nuclear facilities, is unavoidable”. In particular, experts from Belarus expect the Lithuanian side to step up interaction on these matters and that Belarus and Lithuania will be able to arrange mutual information sharing and consultations between technical specialists.

The work on the Belarusian-Lithuanian agreement to fulfill the Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment has been going on for several years already. Last year the Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry sent a proposal to resume the work on the draft agreement to the Lithuanian side.

First Deputy Emergencies Minister of Belarus Vasily Stepanenko also underlined that Belarus and Lithuania do not have a document on the mutual notification about an emergency at nuclear facilities. Lithuania is the only neighboring country with which Belarus has not signed such an agreement yet. He said he hopes that the IAEA will help representatives of the sides to get the negotiations off the ground. “If Lithuania refuses to negotiate, it will not benefit that country in any way,” stated Vasily Stepanenko.