All Astravyets NPP's deficiencies must be removed before its operation, Lithuanian vicemin

According to Albinas Zananavičius, Lithuania's concern over the nuclear facility being built close to Vilnius has been founded and now it's important to ensure that all deficiencies are removed before it comes online.

"We must be sure more than 100 percent in Astravyet's case that everything has been done and that this power plant poses no threat to Lithuania it poses today. There've also been achievements in this area as EU stress tests have been done, which, by the way, showed that Lithuania's position we repeated many times was correct and there are problems. Therefore, we must focus and demand that all deficiencies are removed before the power plant starts operating," the vice minister told an energy forum in Vilnius on Wednesday, organized by the magazine Valstybė (State).

Besides the Astravyets projects, he also mentioned the Baltic power grids' synchronization with continental Europe and the United States' LNG exports to Europe among Lithuania's key priorities.

Lithuania has been one of the most vocal critics of the nuclear power plant under construction in Belarus and says the facility is being built unsafely and in violation of international requirements, which Minsk denies.