European Commission greenlights horror nuke in Bulgaria
Diet Simon, sourcing from urgewald - 14.12.2007 02:37
The European Commission has made a positive assessment of a Soviet-design nuclear power station planned in an earthquake zone of Bulgaria.
The German group "urgewald e.V.", who refer to the project at Belene as a “nightmare reactor”, report that despite support from all over Europe for their opposition campaign, the EU’s administration has greenlighted it.
“We were, of course disappointed and outraged by this decision,” the group writes in a release, noting that “a few weeks ago even the former head of the Bulgarian nuclear supervisory authority, Dr. Kastchiev, argued vehemently against Belene.”
Over recent weeks 30,000 people sent protest mails to the EU Commission. “Only two weeks ago representatives of the Commission assured us that there wouldn’t be a positive response to Belene in the immediate future.”
The Commission ruled positively so quickly because it excluded all environmental issues, including the seismic risks, out of its examination, urgewald writes.
“It stuns us that the atomic lobby was able to assert such an untenable procedure in Brussels. But it also indicates that there were opposing positions in the Commission about environmental and earthquake risks. No agreement would have been possible without excluding these issues.”
If the Commission’s assessment had been negative, the Belene project would have been scotched.
“The positive response allows the Bulgarian government to apply for loans from Euratom and the European Investment Bank, but it doesn’t mean they’ve already been decided,” notes urgewald, “because in the next round of decision-making the Commission will not be able to exclude the environmental issues.”
After broad public protests German banks withdrew from funding Belene last year. If EU funding is provided for it, it would be the first time Europeans’ tax moneys would be used to build new Russian-designed reactors within the EU.
EU support would give the green light to build new Russian nuclear reactors not just for Bulgaria but also in other east European countries like Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia and Slovakia.
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