MINSK, 9 August (BelTA) – The Ambassador of Poland to Belarus has been summoned to the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs following the statement of Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Witold Waszczykowski in an interview to the RIA Novosti that his country has no plans of buying energy from the Belarusian nuclear power plant (BelNPP), which is currently under construction, as the project is based on allegedly “unsafe technologies”, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“We would like to remind everyone that the technologies used in the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant are successfully applied in the implementation of similar projects in the EU countries such as Hungary, Slovakia, Finland, and the Czech Republic. As far as we know, Poland has not expressed any criticism on the matter towards the abovementioned states. In this respect, the Ambassador of Poland to Belarus has been summoned to the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the ministry said.
According to the ministry, if Witold Waszczykowski's words cited by the media are true, there is a clear politicization of the BelNPP construction project through the demonstration by individual countries of so-called European solidarity under Lithuania's pressure. “Belarus is open to cooperation and contacts in the nuclear security area, including in the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant, with all stakeholders and, moreover, with the closest neighbors such as Poland,” the ministry stressed.
The ministry added that in 2009-2013 Poland participated in the discussion of the report on environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the Belarusian nuclear power plant and was not against the implementation of the project. “Poland voiced no complaints or doubts regarding the safety of the project neither at the bilateral level nor within any of the international formats. Thus, for instance, during the discussion of Belarus' national report on the implementation of the Convention on Nuclear Safety ahead of the 7th Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties (27 March-7 April 2017) Polish counterparts asked only three practical questions, to which we provided the answers. Witold Waszczykowski linked the decision, which was supposedly taken in Poland, not to buy electricity from the Belarusian nuclear power plant to “unsafe technologies”. This sounds odd at least given that Poland itself is considering developing nuclear energy,” the ministry added.
