July 2005 EU Nuclear Liabilities: The failure to uphold the polluter pays principle and the case for effective state aid control through new internal market legislation.
July 15, 2008, the European Commission gave its opinion on the Mochovce Nuclear power plant. It said that it approved the plans of ENEL/SE, on the condition that the utility "bring(s) the design in line with the existing best practices” concerning protection against external attack." It is technically impossible to implement such a safety feature (=secondary containment) in the existing structures of Mochovce 3&4.
As this safety structure will not be build, this means that safety concerns led the Commission to give a negative opinion. Only, the Commission opinion is not binding.
It is more than likely that ENEL/SE will now start to finish Mochovce 3&4, without any additional safety measures, against the explicit advise of the Commission. And if ever anything goes wrong with Mochovce 3&4, the European Commission can always say that they didnt approve of it.
So far for the protection of citizens in the new Member states.
We thank everybody who participated in the Cyberaction.
Soon, before mid-April, the European Commission will issue its official
opinion on the Italian owned utility ENEL/SE completing two nuclear
reactors at the Mochovce nuclear power plant. The construction of these
reactors was started more then twenty years ago, but was aborted when
the money ran out.
There are a lot of concerns. Concerns with nuclear power in Slovakia in
general and concerns with the Mochovce nuclear power plant in
particular
Mochovce 3 and 4 are based on a completely outdated design.
ENEL/SE and the Slovakian authorities claim it is a modern nuclear
power plant, but if one examines the technical specifications, you
wonder where they base that on (read more)
Since the Czechoslovak authorities issued the
permit for Mochovce in the eighties a lot has happened. However, the
Slovak governments insists that there are no improvements necesarry to
finish the reactors. For this reason they now refuse to demand a full
Environmental Impact Assessment from ENEL/SE for the project, an
assessment which never has been fully made under Czechoslovak rule.
In Slovakia there are insufficient arrangements for dealing
with nuclear waste, nuclear decommissioning and insurance for nuclear
power installations.
Although nuclear power policy is the sovereignty of member states, the
European Commission has, under the EURATOM treaty, the obligation to
give its opinion on nuclear building projects in Europe. Formally, the
European Commission cannot reject a plan, but they can give a
“negative opinion”.
Read a bit more why its taking the Commission so long to issue its opinion.
We urge you to write the Commissioners using the letter below, or in your own words
You can ofcourse also write something in your own language to the EU Commissioners. Please be courteous and polite; there is nothing to be gained from an impolite letter. You find an Italian translation here.
