VILNIUS, July 27. /TASS/. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called on the head of the European Council Charles Michel to convince President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko not to hurry with the launch of the nuclear power plant, which is under construction near the Lithuanian border. This is according to a statement by the press service of the Lithuanian leader.

"It is necessary to send a clear political signal to President Lukashenko with an insistence not to start operating the nuclear power plant until the issue of nuclear safety is resolved and recommendations following the results of stress tests are fulfilled," Nauseda said.

Lithuania criticizes the project of the Belarusian nuclear power plant (BelNPP), which is under construction 50 km from Vilnius. It constantly appeals to Brussels, arguing that the EU should oblige Minsk to fulfill Lithuanian requirements to the nuclear facility. Lithuania claims that the plant is being built in violation of international requirements to nuclear energy. The Seimas (parliament) of the Baltic republic declared the BelNPP a threat to national security and also legally prohibited the purchase and export of its electricity through its power grids.

In May, the Seimas called on the government to convince the EU to impose sanctions against the operator of the nuclear power plant, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom and other enterprises involved in the project. At the end of June, Nauseda asked the European Commission to help organize a boycott of the BelNPP electricity.

In turn, Minsk states that Vilnius’ claims to the BelNPP are politically motivated and the safety of the plant will be ensured in accordance with the highest standards.

The construction of the BelNPP, carried out with the participation of Rosatom, began in 2009 near the town of Ostrovets, Grodno Region. The physical start-up of the first block of the plant is scheduled for early August.

Stress tests at BelNPP were carried out in 2016 and showed its resistance to extreme external conditions, in particular, the impact on the plant and its power units of natural factors (earthquakes, flooding, extreme weather conditions and their combination). The possible consequences of a power failure at the NPP were also analyzed. The last inspection with subsequent recommendations was carried out by Minsk jointly with the European Commission represented by the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) in 2017-2018.