Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-16-Speech-2-144"
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"en.19991116.8.2-144"2
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"Ladies and gentlemen, firstly may I thank you for your get-well wishes. It is a genuine cold, not a political one. I shall gladly take some aspirin C later, hoping that I do not also get stomach ache.
I have to say that these are questions which do not let you sleep peacefully. The speaker who said that was completely right. However, where nuclear safety is concerned we must, I believe, leave no measure untried which might lead to further increasing the level of safety which we already have. I see no alternative other than, where we are dealing with power stations which we want to shut down but which, for the political reasons mentioned, we ourselves are unable to shut down, doing something to at least remedy the most serious safety defects, however difficult and complicated that might be. This is my answer to the very basic question which was asked.
We will certainly be returning to this subject on frequent occasions. I sincerely hope, and I say this with good cause, that on the next occasion that this matter is discussed I will be able to report on a situation which is considerably better than it is today.
I feel vindicated by the debate which you have conducted and thank you for the full and unambiguous political support which was evident in your contributions. It is very important for the Commission to be able to point out in its discussions that the European Parliament sets the most stringent high standards in the issue of nuclear safety. This is an important factor for the States with which we are dealing because they are well aware that at the end of the accession negotiations the European Parliament must give its consent, that nothing, therefore, is possible without the European Parliament and that the wishes of the European Parliament in this matter are consequently of prime importance.
I would like to make clear that we are focusing on reactors which, according to the G7 opinion dating, I think, from 1992 cannot be upgraded, not because of their safety defects in operation but because of their design. We are therefore talking about reactors which are constructionally unsafe and whose constructions cannot be upgraded, at least not at justifiable costs. In all these cases there is only one reasonable solution to the problem, namely shutdown, and, without any doubt, shutdown as quickly as possible. Anyone who sees these reactors as a safety risk, as we do, must be concerned to see them shut down sooner rather than later. The difficulty is simply that the negotiations on the
i.e. the accession negotiations, give us only a political means of exerting pressure and nothing more.
As I have already said, the European Union has only extremely limited competence in this area. We are therefore exerting political pressure in this matter, which means that the result will be a political solution. This political solution must not just take into consideration our own wishes. I am well aware that this subject is extremely volatile in some Member States and, as the debate also has shown, particularly at this time in Austria. In reaching this solution, we must, of course, realise that this subject has to a certain extent acquired an almost theological importance in the candidate countries. In Bulgaria, for example, I can tell you that the issue of the closure of Kosloduj has been the number one topic for some months, the topic which sparks all domestic political antagonisms. I must say that the steps which the Bulgarian Government has so far taken, given the balance of power in the country and the fact that the willingness to shut down Kosloduj will be used against the government in the forthcoming elections, as will also happen in Slovakia and Lithuania, must be seen in this light as brave decisions.
We will not fail to find a compromise, that is to fix a date which we can still accept at worst. In each instance this date must be clearly independent of the projected time which each reactor has to run. This is what we did with regard to Ignalina and Bohunice. I would like to mention something else concerning Bohunice because for some time now there have been attempts to draw me into the Austrian dispute. These will not prove successful, however, because I fully agree with the Austrian position that we should try to achieve something even better. Wolfgang Schüssel and I both said this clearly in the Council yesterday.
The Austrian Foreign Minister raised this issue yesterday in the Council and I said that I supported it and, indeed, all the efforts being made to use the, in my opinion, considerable scope which exists; I firmly support this. The problem is simply that when I entered office, as you know, I found a completed agreement with Slovakia; completed and sealed. It was published only days after I entered office. However, I severely criticised what the Commission had negotiated with Slovakia. There was no alternative but to react in the way that I did. However, from the outset, including here in Parliament, I have said on many occasions that in the case of Bohunice I believe that further discussion would be appropriate and that the Slovak position gives reason to believe that more can be achieved.
Some colleagues have voiced the question of whether it is really wise to invest in the safety of nuclear power stations which are to be shut down. This is actually an incredibly difficult question and, as I see it, pretty much a question of conscience. In recent years the Commission has also spent money on ensuring the operational safety of the nuclear power stations under consideration until such time as they are shut down, basically concentrating measures on the improvement of the safety culture in these countries, the creation of independent supervisory authorities and the training of the personnel who carry out this supervisory work. We have not financed investments which would extend the life of these nuclear power stations. That does not come into it.
Unfortunately, however, we must also distinguish between the Soviet-design nuclear power stations in the candidate countries which I have been talking about and the Soviet-design nuclear power stations outside the candidate countries. Here we have a different lever. In the first instance, the lever is politically very strong because these States wish to enter the EU and we can say plainly and simply that a precondition is that this issue be resolved in a way which is acceptable to us.
In the case of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Ukraine or other States, we obviously do not have the same means of exerting pressure. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the European Union must also be involved in raising the safety standard in these States. It really is a dreadful dilemma. We know that a nuclear power station must be shut down and yet we have a political situation in which this cannot be achieved. We are faced with the question of whether to do something to at least ensure safe operation and perhaps gradually improve it, knowing full well that this might lead to the nuclear power station which you want to shut down remaining in operation longer than would otherwise be the case."@en1
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