Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-09-Speech-4-097-000"
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"en.20110609.5.4-097-000"2
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"Madam President, firstly, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to discuss this important issue today, particularly as regards the European Union’s neighbourhood.
Radioactive contamination is transboundary in nature. This was sorely felt after Chernobyl and Fukushima. The highest nuclear safety standards should therefore be legally binding and global, facilities everywhere should be equally safe, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should be strengthened.
Standards applied in the European Union are among the highest in the world. To achieve even greater security, we will carry out stress tests in nuclear power plants that are functioning, those that are planned and those that have been closed. However, if we want to be safe, identical criteria should be applied to facilities already existing or planned in the EU’s neighbourhood (Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Armenia, Switzerland and Ukraine). As we consistently strive for this, we must speak with one voice.
At the moment, less than 100 km from the European Union’s external border, near St Petersburg, a nuclear power plant with a Chernobyl-type reactor is still in operation. Russia is planning to build two new nuclear power plants even closer to the European Union’s borders in Belarus and Kaliningrad. From the Lithuanian border, it will be possible to see the chimneys of one of these power plants just as clearly as we can we the tower of Strasbourg Cathedral from Parliament. Both projects have similar problems. Work has begun even before the environmental impact assessment is completed and, as yet, there has been no explanation of the criteria for choosing the construction site of either nuclear power plant, possible alternative sites have not been analysed and general evacuation plans have not been drawn up. There are plans for both nuclear power plants to have experimental reactors, the safety of which is impossible to evaluate, as they have not yet been in operation anywhere.
Generally speaking, Belarus is not ready to develop nuclear energy, and the Russian Government is not only failing to answer the questions put by neighbouring countries, but is ignoring its population’s requests for consultations. For a second time, through the use of red tape, it is refusing to allow the registration of an initiative regarding a public referendum on the issue of nuclear power plant construction. One of the steps that might encourage the European Union’s neighbours to comply with the highest safety standards would be for the whole of the Union to refuse to buy electricity produced while failing to respect these standards. We must not use EU citizens’ money to support unsafe nuclear energy."@en1
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