DISINFO: Lithuania campaigns against Belarusian NPP because it has been offended by the EU
SUMMARY
Vilnius is working on the creation of an international coalition against the Belarusian nuclear power plant. Earlier, Lithuania had to shut down its nuclear power plant at the EU’s request, so a situation in which neighbouring Belarus has built a new nuclear power plant offends Lithuania.
RESPONSE
This is a conspiracy in a series of disinformation claims concerning the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant (NPP) in Astravets. Lithuania opposes construction of the Astravets Nuclear power Plant (NPP) as the project does not comply with the international standards of environmental protection and nuclear safety, and is built on the site that was not duly justified over the alternative ones. On 7 June 2011, Lithuania lodged a complaint with the Implementing Committee of the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment (the Espoo Convention) on the Astravets nuclear power plant case. In February 2019 the Meeting of the Parties of the Espoo Convention adopted the decision, which acknowledged that Belarus had failed to comply with some Convention provisions regarding site selection and encouraged Belarus and Lithuania to continue bilateral expert consultations. See earlier disinformation cases alleging that Lithuania fights against Belarusian NPP on the orders of Sweden and Finland, Dalia Grybauskaitė's opposition to the NPP is an attempt to hide Lithuania's own failures in nuclear power, that the "Chernobyl" series aimed to discredit the Belarusian power plant and Belarus-Russia relations and that Western-financed environmental NGOs in Belarus stage a big campaign against Rosatom and Russia.