Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-04-19-Speech-4-614-000"
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"en.20120419.24.4-614-000"2
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"Mr President, I am not against fusion energy. However, when it comes to ITER, the European Commission should have learned from its mistakes.
Unfortunately this never happens. For example, the Galileo project was estimated to cost EUR 7 billion in the year 2000; by 2010 the estimated costs had tripled to EUR 22 billion. The cost continues to climb even further with no real end in sight. The parallels are alarming. ITER’s partners are saying they can only build a stripped-down version of the device by 2018, five years later than the date set in the original agreement.
The first experiments intended to validate fusion for power will not take place until the end of 2025. Construction costs are likely to double from the original 2006 estimate of EUR 5 billion to EUR 10 billion. The cost of ITER’s operational phase – another EUR 5 billion over 20 years – may also rise. As 90% of the project is directly managed by the participating states, we are unlikely ever to know what the final costs will be. Taxpayers deserve to know the cost of ITER as they are ultimately paying for it, yet this House continues to approve the financing of a project that has already cost over 50% more than the original estimates.
The EU’s approach to public finance is catastrophic. On Monday Commissioner Lewandowski told us that the 2011 payments budget was in surplus to the tune of EUR 1.5 billion, yet a couple of months ago he told us it was short to the amount of EUR 11 billion.
Which version is true? Does he not know how much money he has in the bank at the end of each day? I know this and everybody knows this. ITER, like Galileo and the EU budget, is becoming an absurdity, but the taxpayers who are left to foot the bill for these projects are not laughing at all, I can assure you. We should scrap this project altogether."@en1
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