Lithuanian Parliament to hold extraordinary session for nuclear plant referendum

Degutienė's secretariat said the session is called in response to a call from 55 of Lithuania's 141 lawmakers.

Under the Seimas statute, extraordinary sessions are called by the parliamentary speaker following a written proposal of at least a third – 47 – parliamentarians.

The session is needed to hold the referendum in conjunction with the 14 October general election.

Pursuant to the Referendum Law, a referendum can be held two-three months after the day of announcement of a relevant parliamentary resolution. Therefore, the resolution should be adopted between 14 July and 14 August.

Under the Constitution, the Seimas' spring session ends on 30 June.

Parliament's right

The Seimas has the right and responsibility to decide whether or not Lithuania will hold a referendum on the construction of a new nuclear power plant, the country's President Dalia Grybauskaitė comments.

"I will definitely leave it to the Seimas to decide. It's the Seimas responsibility and right to do so, and the people of Lithuania also have the right to have a say in various ways," the president told journalists in Brussels on Friday, after being asked if such a referendum was needed.

46 thousand signatures

An initiative group has managed to collect only around 46,000 signatures in favor of the referendum over a set period of three months. The initiative group, registered in March and made up of members of the Lithuanian Green Policy Institute and the Lithuanian Green Movement, had to collect at least 300,000 signatures over three months and submit them by last Wednesday.

Another initiative group is also collecting signatures for an advisory referendum on the construction of the nuclear power plant. They have to submit the signatures by 17 July.