President Dalia Grybauskaitė attended the high-level meeting on nuclear safety and security held at the initiative of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York.
Speaking at the meeting, the President put forth Lithuania's proposals for enhancing international nuclear safety standards. She underlined that new nuclear projects could not be even considered without a comprehensive seismic and environmental safety assessment, and stress tests must become the routine procedure for every - planned or existing - nuclear power plant. The sites and technologies, as well as expertise of personnel, should be subjected to maximum control and the supervision of compliance with the requirements should be the responsibility of respective international organizations.
"As nuclear accidents respect no borders, the development of any nuclear energy project in any state must be implemented with due responsibility for the population of their own and other states. Open and honest consultations with all potentially affected countries, constructive settling of transnational disputes, full transparency and information sharing must be the universal norm. And if legal international imperatives are needed to ensure that, they should be adopted," said the President.
Recalling nuclear accidents, the President called the attention of world leaders to new threats. The President underlined that in our direct neighborhood and in the centre of Europe two new nuclear power projects were being developed today without proper environmental assessment and with no proper sharing of information. According to the President, it seems worrying and threatening - not only to Lithuania but to the entire region.
"If we agree that only safe technologies in safe sites under safe construction with safe operation and safe decommissioning can guarantee real nuclear safety and security, I invite the international community, with a strong lead from the International Atomic Energy Agency, to assure universal adherence to these principles. It is the only way to avoid new nuclear disasters. Let's treat the Fukushima and St. Petersburg accidents as the last wake-up call for the responsible behavior of all the actors in nuclear energy since a nuclear accident anywhere is an accident everywhere," emphasized the President.
The President said that we must immediately take concrete actions to improve the existing system of nuclear safety and security regulations.
Before the high-level meeting on nuclear safety and security, President Dalia Grybauskaitė also talked with José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, who also emphasized that more effective international agreements - binding instead of recommendable nuclear safety conventions - were needed for ensuring nuclear security.
According to the President, it is highly important for Lithuania, in whose neighborhood energy projects are developed, to know that the European Commission is determined to maintain active cooperation with neighboring countries on nuclear safety issues, and promises have already been received from EU neighbors, including Russia and Belarus, to conduct safety and stress tests, analogous to those performed in the EU, for planned nuclear power plants.
