Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-03-23-Speech-3-135-000"
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"en.20110323.18.3-135-000"2
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".
Madam President, honourable Members, the Commission has expressed the solidarity of the European Union with the people and government of Japan. We have expressed our deep sympathy. We believe that the courage and the calm attitude of the Japanese people is worthy of our utmost respect and admiration.
The previous speaker mentioned neighbouring states which are just as important for our safety; a central one of these is Switzerland, along with Ukraine, Armenia, Turkey and the Russian Federation. I have had a long telephone conversation with the Ukrainian Energy Minister. He stated that he would be happy to participate if there were a general stress test for the European Union – in other words, an offer on his part. It is clear that our authority in respect of a stress test outside of the European Union and its Member States will depend greatly on whether we can organise this jointly in Europe. If some Member States do not want to participate then we will have less authority when making an offer to Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and Switzerland than if all the Member States take a common view that this is an important safety task.
We will therefore prepare these safety criteria in the coming weeks and we are happy to cooperate not just with Parliament, but also with all those involved in the European Union – with NGOs, energy enterprises, workers, technicians, engineers in the power stations – with the aim of achieving the greatest possible further reduction in risk and increase in safety. We are grateful that President Sarkozy wishes to address this whole topic at the G20 and therefore lessons will be learnt not just for nuclear power plants in Europe, but also for those throughout the rest of the world.
This is the situation for our part. We will be happy to provide Parliament with information on how to proceed further at any time via its specialist committees – as we have already done in recent days in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy – and we look forward to corresponding support from the European Council here in Brussels tomorrow and the day after.
We have coordinated aid efforts under the Monitoring and Information Centre so as to make a common offer of aid from the EU. Blankets, mattresses, water containers, tents and hygiene equipment have been provided by 13 Member States as part of an initial joint EU aid package. We are awaiting further offers and will be taking delivery of and distributing aid consignments in Japan in the coming days: on Thursday – in other words, tomorrow – and on Friday. Commissioner Georgieva will be present in person.
We have also offered to assist at the nuclear power plant complex, but our assistance has not yet been requested. Where nuclear energy is concerned, we are in close contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and are monitoring, assessing and analysing the safety situation in Japan closely. Further information is required before we can estimate the impact of the incident at the nuclear power plant. At the moment we are assuming that the Japanese engineers and technicians and the Japanese Government will regain control over this nuclear power plant complex and that further damage from the disaster can be avoided.
We are assessing what lessons we should learn from this for Europe. To this end, on Tuesday last week we held a high level conference – with all the Member States, with all the energy enterprises that operate nuclear power plants, with all the enterprises that manufacture nuclear power plants and with the atomic energy authorities of the Member States. On Monday an Extraordinary Energy Council was held, having been convened by Mr Fellegi.
It must be realised that there is great disparity between the situations and positions of the European Member States as regards nuclear power plants. Fourteen countries operate nuclear power plants; for 13 of these it is part of their long-term energy policy, while one – Germany – has a strategy to phase out nuclear power. Thirteen countries have no nuclear power, of which two – Poland and Italy – are currently considering moving into or resuming nuclear energy production. With the exception of renewable energy – with its 20% target – the energy mix lies within the competence of national legislation and policy. We respect that.
The situation in different parts of Europe varies greatly – overall, Europe generates 30% of its power from nuclear energy, but in Austria the share is approaching 0% and in France it is 80% – but there are two common denominators. The first, which we will come back to in the course of the year, is the infrastructure. Whatever direction energy policy is to take, expansion of the infrastructure for electricity, gas and storage capacity – in terms of both quality and capacity – needs to be accelerated. Secondly, safety. The safety of industrial plants in general, of infrastructure in general and of nuclear power plants in particular is a common concern for the benefit of workers in the power plants, the citizens of Europe and European nature.
We are therefore proposing that we look at whether it is meaningful and appropriate, in view of the already recognisable causes and the emerging information on the causes of the incident in Japan, to carry out a safety check – a stress test; in other words, an extraordinary test based on common standards and criteria with the aim of further reducing risk in the 143 nuclear power plants that are operated in the European Union, as well as for the building of any new plants in the European Union.
Safety benefits all citizens, regardless of whether the Member State in which they live has nuclear power, is planning nuclear power, is phasing out nuclear power or has no nuclear power. This would look at particular criteria such as flooding and risks to operation and safety, earthquakes and knowledge gained in Japan, cooling systems and their functioning and the subject of power supply and backup power in a staggered configuration, so that more cooling can be maintained by means of power and backup power units even where there is a risk of earthquakes and flooding. This would involve general criteria for all nuclear power plants as well as special criteria for each particular design, age, location, seismic risk, flood risk and other factors. This special review should also include topics such as aircraft crashes, cyber attacks and terrorist attacks.
The Commission’s offer to the Member States is that it will prepare and coordinate this jointly with the atomic energy authorities. This is only an offer; acceptance is voluntary. The Member States are themselves responsible for deciding whether they want to perform a general and special common stress test in Europe."@en1
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