Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-05-10-Speech-2-591-000"
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"en.20110510.65.2-591-000"2
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, in the 25 years since the nuclear accident in Chernobyl, the Commission has played a significant role in worldwide efforts to alleviate the consequences of the tragedy. The size of the task meant that a united effort was required. That is why the Commission cooperated with partners in the Member States, the G7 and Ukraine itself to ensure that the area can be stabilised in an orderly manner and secured in an environmentally appropriate way.
The EU took an active approach in mobilising more resources from the international community to enable outstanding work at the Chernobyl site to be completed and we are continuing our efforts in this direction with our own contribution. The Commission is the biggest contributor to the Chernobyl Shelter Fund and we promised a further EUR 110 million from our budget at the donor conference held in Kiev last April, which brought together pledges of a further EUR 550 million.
We have been busy on the diplomatic front and have also persuaded 32 countries, including 13 new donors, to commit to the fund. We intend continuing our activities among other donors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, so as to secure the financial resources still required to complete all projects by 2015. We are also working with the government in Ukraine to ensure that the plan to shelter the Chernobyl reactor core can be completed. This involves encasing the damaged reactor block IV with new protective cladding and the necessary steps to close down the other reactor blocks. All work should be completed by 2015.
Next we turn to the research projects under the aegis of the Euratom framework programme relating to the consequences of the accident and how these are to be overcome. At present, research into low doses of radiation is the subject of a large-scale initiative as part of a joint programme planned by the European MELODI platform.
As part of the mechanism for cooperation in the area of nuclear safety, we are considering a project aimed at helping the most significantly affected population groups around the Chernobyl exclusion zone. It is our intention to deal with the links between health and nutrition in greater depth. If it proves useful to carry out targeted activities in evaluating the consequences for human health in all areas affected by the fallout from Chernobyl, the Commission is ready to take action and to transfer responsibility for the coordination of the appropriate measures to the EU’s Health Security Committee.
Another of the Commission’s responsibilities is the combating of environmental contamination. After the accident, we contributed to joint research projects with the Commonwealth of Independent States in supporting the gathering of extensive data and the designing of strategies for disaster management in the nuclear sector and in the relevant areas in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. We gathered data on the release of radioactive caesium throughout the EU following the accident. This was published in the form of an atlas in 1998, produced in cooperation with Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
At present, under the aegis of the 7th Euratom framework programme, we are supporting a network of excellence in radio ecology in order to finance integration, networking and scientific excellence in the interests of radiation protection for human beings and the environment.
When it comes to civil protection, for the last nine years we have been fostering cooperation between the Member States in the area of civil protection exercises. These exercises also involve participants from third countries. Three exercises co-financed with funds from our financial instrument for civil protection had a radiological component, namely TORCH, which dealt with an accident resulting in mass fatalities and its simulation, CREMEX, which involved a mass contamination in the form of a dirty bomb, and SISMICAEX, implemented one year ago, which dealt with a nuclear accident caused by an earthquake.
In the coming years we shall continue to provide aid in a spirit of European solidarity, doing all we can to reduce the damage and to avoid further damage from Chernobyl."@en1
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