Jurij Barańczyk editor at the propaganda portal Regnum critized the statement made by the Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski on the contraversial nuclear power plant project in Ostrowiec in Belarus.
Poland and Lithuania together against Ostrowiec
Russia’s Rosatom is building a nuclear power plant in Belarus’s Ostrowiec. The first unit is to be ready in 2018 and the second one in 2020. The facility’s total capacity will be 2400 MW. Lithuania opposes the construction. Poland supported its disapproval, which caused the Russian medium to criticize Poland.
Barańczyk reminded that the project was approved by experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who are familiar with the situation in Ostrowiec „better than any Polish minister, or the entire government.” The Russian editor claims that Waszczykowski’s statement was an element of energy rivalry with Belarus, which moved to a „political level” In his opinion, Poland did not want to acknowledge that Belarus has the right to its own economic policy and did not want to recognize the country as an equal partner.
In an interview for RIA Novosti, the Polish Foreign Minister supposedly said that Poland „will change its mind about buying energy from that power plant.” He stressed that safe technologies are not being used in the construction of the facility. „This is why we are against this power plant, we will not cooperate and buy power from it,” Waszczykowski declared. He also suggested that the same technology was used in Chernobyl where in 1986 a nuclear disaster took place. According to the editor of the propaganda mouthpiece Regnum, Poland is in a „nuclear hysteria.”
Manipulation?
In a reaction to Waszczykowski’s statements, Konrad Pawlik the Polish Ambassador was summoned to Belarus’s Foreign Affairs Ministry. Poles are talking to Belarusians on economic cooperation, including energy. However, because of the differences in opinion on the Ostrowiec power plant, the talks are not very advanced.
„If the statements by Waszczykowski and quoted by the media are representative of what was actually said, this means the routine issue of constructing a Belarusian nuclear power plant was made about politics through the fact that some countries decided to demonstrate the so-called 'European solidarity’ under the pressure from Lithuania,” the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said. It is worth reminding that according BiznesAlert.pl’s sources the RIA Novosti interview was manipulated, which was then confirmed by the Polish Foreign Ministry itself.
Regnum/Wojciech Jakóbik