Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-07-Speech-4-142"
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"en.20000907.5.4-142"2
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". – The Commission shares the deep regrets expressed in the resolutions on the accident involving the Russian submarine the
in the Arctic Bering Sea on 12 August and the loss of the lives of 118 seamen. We were particularly concerned about the policy of the Russian authorities in the first days after the accident on foreign assistance and information provided to the Russian population and the wider public. Russia is ultimately responsible for devising and implementing a plan to manage its nuclear waste and spent fuel, and the resolutions, therefore, quite rightly call upon Russia to use all available resources, including its own specialists.
The Commission considers that the international community should offer the necessary assistance to Russia. It has already launched a number of assistance projects under various Community programmes. Improved radioactive waste management in north-west Russia is one of the explicit priorities included in the new TACIS regulation covering the next seven years. The Commission welcomes any action that would increase the budget funding to be used to reduce the ideological threat in north-west Russia and in particular to enable laid-up nuclear submarines to be dismantled more quickly than 10 of the North Fleet's 100 disused nuclear submarines moored at various based in north-west Russia have been dismantled so far.
Besides the submarines, spent fuel from a number of nuclear-powered icebreakers also adds to the ecological risk. The lack of storage capacity for spent nuclear fuel remains one of the major bottlenecks in dismantling operations as a whole. Community-backed activities are studies to design and cost a storage facility in north-west Russia or in the southern Urals. In the light of these studies, the international community, perhaps including the European Community, might later finance the construction of such a storage facility.
To speed up dismantling, the Community is supporting the design, construction, and licensing of a transport and storage tank for damaged spent fuel produced in the operation of nuclear submarines and icebreakers and currently stored under primitive conditions. The Commission is also involved in a number of studies aiming to improve radioactive-waste management in north-west Russia.
Before concluding, I would like to stress the importance of international coordination in this immense task. To give two examples, the Commission is serving in the IAEA-sponsored contact expert group. The group's work might eventually make it possible to draw up a comprehensive strategy and key investment projects that should be supported by the international community and, together with a number of donor countries, the Commission is currently negotiating an agreement with the Russians. This agreement, known as the 'Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme', is intended to overcome obstacles to international aid stemming, for instance, from tax exemptions and nuclear liability. The Commission hopes that the
accident will bring about real progress in these negotiations and, in particular, strengthen the resolve of the Russian authorities to conclude the agreement."@en1
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