The European Parliament stood up for the Belarusan antinuclear physicists-ecologists

Following the decision of the National Platform of the EaP Civil Society Forum, the MEPs stood up for the Belarusan ecologists.

As previously reported the EuroBelarus Information Service, the civil society activists, the coordinator of public campaign "Building NPP in Astravets is a crime!" Mikalaj Ulasevich and coordinator of the Belarusan anti-nuclear campaign, the secretary of independent public expertise of the project of the Belarusan NPP Tatsiana Novikava were not allowed the entry to the Lithuanian territory by Lithuanian guards on September 26.

Tatsiana Novikava, as appears from the border service document, was declared a person that could threaten public order, health, international relations and internal security of Lithuania and other EU countries.

This incident caused immediate reaction of Belarusan environmentalists and the National Platform of the EaP Civil Society Forum. In the Statement of the Belarusan National Platform, the organizations members pointed to the lack of obvious reasons for such action of the Republic of Lithuania. As far as there were no evident legal grounds for banning the entry and due to the non-transparency of the decision, the National Platform stated that the ground was most likely the antinuclear activists’ social activity. The fact is that Ulasevich and Novikava have been actively participating in the campaign against the Lithuanian Nuclear Power Plant construction.

Belarusan civil society expressed its concern about the possible consequences of such a move, considering it can become a negative precedent for the European Union's relationship with Belarusan civil society. The danger is also in fact that other members of civil society will have problems with movement within the Schengen area due to their citizenship.

Members of the European Parliament Rebecca Harms (Co-Chair of the Group of European Greens in the EP) and Werner Schulz (MP from the Group of Greens) shared the concerns of the National Platform and contributed to the imposition of this issue at the EU level. Thus, the MPs have sent an open letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania A.Ažubalis and to the Ambassador of Lithuania to the EU R. Karoblis.

The MPs reminded that cooperation with civil society is one of the basic guidelines of Belarus-EU relations, and the decision of Lithuania violates this guideline and undermines the credibility of the single EU foreign policy. In his letter, R. Harms and W. Schultz called the Lithuanian authorities to provide the rationale for their decision-making on the prohibition of entry at an early date, as well as to reconsider their decision and lift the ban.

R. Harms and W. Schultz also took advantage of their right to send a written request to the Council of the EU. Their questions are raising the issue of the Council’s awareness about the incident; its assessments of the events; possible consultations of the Lithuanian Ministry with European counterparts on the incident; as well as the actions that the Council of Ministers is planning to take to improve the communication within the EU as to prevent the recurrence of similar conflicts between EU member states and representatives of the civil society in Belarus. A written response from the Council must be received no later than November 26 2012. The correspondence between the EP and the EU Council of Ministers will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

The case of Novikava and Ulasevich was indirectly recalled in the last resolution of the European Parliament on Belarus thanks to the efforts of the Group of European Greens. The Parliament called on EU member states not to use the visa procedures in order to hamper the EU efforts to strengthen civil society in Belarus.