Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-26-Speech-3-032"
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"en.20060426.9.3-032"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is, for various reasons, very difficult to remember the victims of this accident on an anniversary like this one. The suffering of these people cannot be measured. I myself, when I was the mayor of a German town, had the opportunity to look after the children of families that had been victims of the contamination of Chernobyl, and it was one of the most bitter experiences of my political life. The cynicism of those who bore responsibility for what happened defies description, and I agree with Mr Poettering’s view that, if we are to remember what happened on this day twenty years ago, we have to remember that this was the result of an accident in a dictatorship.
Thirdly, it is precisely because of the seamless transition from one use to another that the United States of America has, by its misconduct, given rise to yet another example. The basis on which war with Iraq was embarked on was a questionable argument of ‘we do not negotiate with dictators like Saddam who want to acquire weapons of mass destruction’, yet, at the same time, negotiations were in progress with a dictator – one in North Korea – who actually did possess nuclear weapons, so the message sent out was: ‘we will not attack you if you have nuclear weapons, but we will if you do not’. That amounted to an invitation to every dictator on the planet to get his hands on illegal nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. That, too, must be considered when we discuss Chernobyl.
Ever since my earliest youth, I have campaigned in my own country against nuclear power. The fact that the experience did not turn me into a Green is, I would say, a happy circumstance for the Greens, but there are many in my political family who think as I do; there are others who do not, and I want to speak out clearly on their behalf too; I have to appreciate their arguments and put them forward too. There are members of my group who, like Mr Poettering, believe that this is a risk that may be taken, and I must have respect for them as well.
There is, though, one thing I would like to add: it is that it is an unfortunate fact that we all find a certain cynicism inescapable. Opponents of the use of nuclear energy know that there are those who are in favour of it and that there are those who can make its use a reality. A new nuclear reactor is currently under construction in Finland. There are states around the world that are only now beginning to make civilian use of nuclear power, and it is because the risks are so great that those, too, who are opposed to nuclear energy as a matter of principle have an interest in our investing as much money as possible in the highest possible safety standards for it. That may be cynical, but it is a kind of cynicism that we, twenty years on from Chernobyl, have to put up with.
The suppression of facts and the evasion and denial of responsibility caused time to be lost, time that was needed if action was to be taken at once to reduce the suffering of human beings. If, then, today, you remember the victims, you must also recall who was responsible and be clear in your own mind about how great, how historic, that responsibility is. I do not, however, share Mr Poettering’s view that this recollection should not be used as the occasion for some fundamental decision-making about how atomic power is used.
As in all groups in this House – no, sorry, except perhaps for the Greens – there are differences of opinion within my own group.
There are party colleagues of mine who take a different view from my own, but every single one of us must, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, answer the question of which it has furnished an example and which it has made visible to every single human being, namely the question as to whether that which is technically possible is, in fact, morally defensible. As I see it, the answer has already been given, and it is in the negative.
I believe that there are three fundamental reasons for scepticism about atomic energy. Firstly, it can be argued that accidents in atomic power stations are rare; indeed they are, but, when they occur, they are so devastating in their effects that one must, considering the minor risk that may be present against the disaster that it equally well may entail, decide that the slight risk is not worth it. I do not believe that that is a matter of doubt.
There is another reason. Only in recent weeks, we have seen in India an example of what we are discussing with relation to Iran, namely that the misuse of civilian use for military purposes is nothing new, but rather something that has been going on for decades. The International Atomic Energy Agency never had any jurisdiction over military use, but nor was it ever able to prevent the ban on proliferation being circumvented by civilian installations being built and then used for military purposes. The risk of that is too great."@en1
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