Kubilius - Lithuania will not deal with Belarus, Kaliningrad plants

VILNIUS - Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius has said that the country will not buy energy from either of the proposed nuclear power plants in Belarus and Kaliningrad over safety concerns.

"In our opinion, the nuclear power plant projects being newly developed both in Kaliningrad and in Belarus are not being developed in line with the international nuclear safety conventions," Kubilius told Lithuanian radio.

"Such restrictions could also be applied if a third country fails to comply with the international climate change conventions, or when we have to protect the energy generation capacities being built on our market against unfair competition, when we have to safeguard our energy independence," he said.

The prime minister's comments come as the region marks the 25th anniversary of the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.

He said in Kiev earlier that all three Baltic states were looking at implementing legislation that would ban trading on "electricity produced by unsafe nuclear plants in the market of the Baltic States."

The comments also coincide with a major government meeting in which ministers discussed the country's future energy security.