Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-15-Speech-2-385"
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"en.20051115.30.2-385"2
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"During the EU accession process, the Slovak Republic did its utmost to ensure the continued operation of its VVER-type nuclear power plants, while improving their safety levels to meet European standards in order to protect people in Slovakia and across all the countries of the Union, in particular our neighbours.
During the period of the accession process we invested around EUR 250 million into two units of the Bohunice nuclear power plant, a substantial amount for a country whose GDP is only slightly more than 50% of the EU average, and, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, we thus ensured the safe operation of the installation until 2015.
An outsider might ask: ‘If that is the case, why do you need the money to decommission it in the 2007-2013 budget period?’ The expert would answer: ‘Because Slovakia made a commitment during its EU accession process, under what we may call the pressure of circumstances, to decommission the two units in question in 2006 and 2008, respectively.’ No great mathematical skills are required to see that tens of millions of euro will thus have been wasted.
However, we were given assurances that the Union would help us with the decommissioning. If the total direct and indirect costs of decommissioning amounted to several million euro, then the sum of EUR 237 million proposed by the Commission would be quite low. Of course, as Mrs Harms suggests in her second report, Slovakia supports the creation of special funds for the decommissioning of nuclear installations, and is ready to cover a substantial part of the total decommissioning costs itself. Nevertheless, levels of economic development should also be taken into account. If, according to expert estimates, the assistance needed to meet the deadline is EUR 702 million, the compromise amount of EUR 400 million proposed by the Committee on Industry clearly seems acceptable, and there are a number of arguments showing that this amount should not be a problem even for the final version of the budget.
I believe that both the reports we have just discussed have one common denominator, which is the safety of nuclear installations. If there is a common aim in the EU to follow a specific timetable regarding this issue, there must also be a common aim to provide the necessary funding for this purpose. If these two aims do not go hand in hand it would, in my opinion, lead to the Union sooner or later having to face the consequences of such inconsistencies."@en1
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