Lithuania to verify Nord Stream 2 environmental impact assessment

"The developers of the Nord Stream 2 project and their experts say in their environmental impact assessment that the impact will not be regional, that it will be local and minimal. These are their statements and their opinion. We will need to verity and evaluate their opinion," Vitalijus Auglys, director of the Environment Ministry's Pollution Prevention Department, told BNS.

"We are just starting to check their statements. We are also waiting for comments from experts, institutions and the general public and will form our opinion based on these comments," the official said.

"Apart from the environmental requirements, the issue of the economic feasibility of the project remains, as well as geopolitical issues related to Ukraine, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. If this project is implemented, the load on the gas pipelines passing through these countries will decline," he said.

Russia's Gazprom expects to start implementing the Nord Stream 2 project, which is estimated to cost nearly 10 billion euros, in April 2018 jointly with Western European energy giants. Denmark and other countries are opposed to the project. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė has said that the planned new gas pipeline is not a commercial project, but a geopolitical one aimed at harming Ukraine and dividing Europe