Lithuanian Lawmakers Seek Constitutional Court Explanation on Fracking Leftovers

Emboldened by France’s Constitutional Court ban on hydraulic fracturing in the country, the Lithuanian Parliament’s 34 lawmakers have logged in with the Lithuanian Constitutional Court an inquiry whether leaving radioactive leftovers in earth’s depths during or after fracking is in line with Lithuanian Constitution.

“Lithuanian Constitution clearly states that polluting environment and earth’s depths is prohibited. According to the law amendments that the Lithuanian parliament has recently passed, burying chemical, radioactive and other toxic materials in the depths is banned, but the law makes an exception to fracking’s leftovers. This is a sheer baloney, and we are set to strike it down,” Algirdas Salamakinas, a Social Democrat legislator and the initiator of the Constitutional Court appeal, told Natural Gas Europe.

Earlier the Lithuanian Environment Ministry had decided that a repeat tender on the country’s hydrocarbons exploration and mining will be needed in the country after the US oil giant Chevron, citing significant regulatory and legislative changes, quit its shale gas exploration bid for the 1800 square km Silute-Taurage tract in south-western Lithuania.

Asked whether France’s decision spurred to spearhead the Constitutional Court appeal efforts in the Lithuanian parliament, Salamakinas replied the initiative had been “floating before starting to bud” way before that.

The appeal signed by 34 MPs, the majority of whom- 27- are from the ruling Social Democratic Party, was submitted to the Constitutional Court last week.

But having found that some of the papers on hydrocarbons exploration research were in English, it asked the appellants to make necessary translations.

“I am sure we will make the corrections and hand the Court the appeal in a proper order this upcoming week,” Salamakinas said.

The 27 Social Democrats’ signatures under the appeal have embittered some of the Party’s stalwarts.

“No one asked me to sign it, perhaps knowing I would not do it. It is pretty weird when some of the colleagues in the ruling coalition choose this kind of way of sorting out those things. Why instead of puzzling the Constitutional Court’s judges with the heaps of shale gas-related papers not to take their reviewing on the parliamentary floor?” Julius Sabatauskas, a parliamentarian, told Natural Gas Europe. He added: “We’ve been seeing the exponentially increasing practice, when we seek the Court on every trifle.  It ought to be addressed only in exceptional cases. This is not it.”

But Salamakinas disagrees: “Sure, it is as. We are talking about what kind of soil our posterity will inherit. It made no sense to repel the provision in the parliament taking into account it had a solid support there.”

He exemplified the French whose Constitutional Court-uphold ban on hydraulic fracturing has put another dent in the Western European map.

“Do you think the French were stupid deciding so?”

But Gediminas Kirkilas, a Social Democratic lawmaker, argued that Lithuanians are “hardly smarter” not allowing earth’s depth explorations.

“Having given the green light for that, we would have not poisoned the entire Lithuania. Now we will be living guessing what is down there,” he said.

Jurgis Razma, a Conservative MP, says comparing Lithuania’s energy situation to France’s is “incoherent.”

“If we, like France, had over 70 percent of energy produced by nuclear reactors, the issue of shale gas exploration would drop as not interesting to anyone. Alas, our situation, with the dependency on Gasprom gas at 90 percent, is quite different, and hydrocarbons provide us a solution. Unfortunately, we have missed one opportunity seeing Chevron take off,” Razma told Natural Gas Europe.

He hopes only a negative answer from the Constitutional Court.

“It has to consider political fallout from a ban,” the MP noted.

The majority Social Democrats’ signing the appeal to the Court made him wonder what is “truly going on in the ruling Party.’’

“I find it abnormal when four-fifths of the Social Democrats sign such an appeal despite their leader’s assurances he stands for shale gas exploration in the country,” noted Razma referring to Algirdas Butkevicius, chairman of Lithuania’s Social Democratic Party chairman, who is also the country’s current prime minister.

But to those who want the Constitutional Court to meddle in the parliamentary wrangling on the hot issue all is about “real democracy” in the party.

“C’mon Lithuania is not a Central Asian country, where there is a single leader and only his notion matters,” Sabatauskas said angrily.

Once the Constitutional Court accepts the legislators’ appeal, there is no time set for its ruling.

“Taking into account the importance of the issue, we expect it will come rather sooner than later,” said Salamakinas.