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VILNIUS, Jul 10, BNS - The European Parliament's (EP) report, which urges that independent experts evaluate the potential environmental impact of the planned Nord Stream gas pipeline through the bottom of the Baltic Sea as well as consider alternatives routes prior to its construction, is a means of moral weight rather than legal, MEPs representing Lithuania said.

Member of European Parliament Vytautas Landsbergis told BNS Thursday that this report is recommendational in nature, and has no actual political or legal power. 

"This resolution will most likely mean nothing to implementers and those interested in the project, who are members of structures, previously known as KGB (Soviet secret services - BNS) or STAZI (former Eastern Germany's secret agency - BNS). However, it is intended not for them, but for politicians of some states, who can influence this project and illustrate whether there is any morality implicit in politics, bearing in mind, also, the public opinion", Landsbergis said.

He noted that this report is designed to show that there are plenty of those, who are opposed to the pipeline in the plans of Russian and German companies.

"If everything will continue to be done as cynically as has been up to this point, the requirements will probably be undermined, however we will know and they will know, that we said no, and they ignored it", Landsbergis said.

Another MP representing Lithuania, Justas Paleckis, was of a similar opinion. He noted this resolution is of a moral nature, and doesn't in any formal way oblige the pipeline constructors to act one way or another.

"Agreements over Nord Stream were bipartite, and national parliaments are not so much influenced by the European Parliament. This is a recommendation of a moral nature", Paleckis said.

The EP passed with a majority vote a recommendational report Tuesday, which, among other things, notes that projects of a similar nature should be implemented together with all countries of the Baltic Sea region, and the EU should play a more vital role in the said projects, the EP's press service said.

On the other hand, a representative of Nord Stream said the recent voting in the EP will neither modify the terms nor construction costs related with implementing the project. He noted that "agreements with most "meaningful" partners have already been signed". Discussions of potential detrimental effects of the pipeline on the environment arose because of the 40,000 tons of chemical weapons buried by the anti-Hitler coalition at the end of WWII resting in the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Largest burial grounds are east of Danish island Bornholm and southeast of Swedish island province Gotland. Drowned shells, bombs and other explosives are thought to have contained approximately 13,000 tons of toxic chemical matter.

Lithuania, Poland and other countries of the Baltic Sea region are alarmed about a possibility of a huge ecological catastrophe should the substances within the decaying shells reach the surroundings. For this very reason, the plan to lay a pipeline through the seabed of the Baltic Sea, is seen as a potential threat to the sea environment and inhabitants of the region.

Planned by the company Nord Stream and Russia's oil giant Gazprom, the 1,200 km gas pipeline would be laid through the bottom of the Baltic Sea to connect Vyborg, a town close to St. Petersburg, with the German city Greifswald. The first branch of the pipeline, with its capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters per year should take effect as of 2010, and both of the branches should reach the pipeline's projected capacity (55 billion cubic meters per year) by 2013.