EP CALLS FOR OVERHAUL OF EU NUCLEAR TREATY

Today’s call by the European Parliament for EU leaders to substantially overhaul the European Atomic Energy Community (also know as Euratom) has been strongly welcomed by Friends of the Earth Europe, which successfully lobbied for the move. The MEPs call is part of the Parliament’s formal opinion on the new ‘constitutional’ treaty and is being sent to all EU leaders, who next week will begin negotiations on the proposals made by the European Convention. [1]

The Parliament’s request highlights a key failure in the Convention where, during more than a year of meetings, any attempt to seriously discuss the future of Euratom was suppressed. The final outcome of the Convention was incomplete and confusing. It proposes not a unified EU treaty and legal framework, but a future legal foundation of two treaties and two legal personalities, both of which will have equal standing in law and share the same set of EU institutions.

Friends of the Earth’s greatest concern is the draft constitution’s explicit declaration that Euratom shall continue to have “full legal effect”, meaning that the EU’s institutional bias in favour of nuclear power would continue. The European Commission last week also criticised the proposals on Euratom saying, in its position paper on the IGC, that they were deficient, and so too has called on EU leaders to clarify the situation.

“The Parliament has stepped in where the Convention feared to tread,” said Mark Johnston, Friends of the Earth Europe’s Safe Energy Campaigner. “Euratom is the skeleton in the EU’s constitutional cupboard, and must not be ignored any longer. It has to be repealed in order to forestall a confusing and contradictory two-treaty pro-nuclear constitutional settlement.”

“EU citizens will not support a constitution that backs nuclear power. We call upon EU leaders to make it clear at the start of the IGC that the fundamental review and reform of Euratom is an essential part of the negotiations. Failure to reform Euratom would put the ratification of the new treaty at greater risk.”

Contact: Mark Johnston + 44 79 7331 9249 (mobile) or mailto:abolish.euratom@foeeurope.org

Notes:
[1] EXTRACT FROM EP RESOLUTION ON THE IGC (25 Sept 03, Paragraph 14): “[The European Parliament] welcomes the separation of the Euratom Treaty from the legal structure of the future Constitution; urges the IGC to convene a Treaty revision conference in order to repeal the obsolete and outdated provisions of the Treaty, notably concerning the promotion of nuclear energy and the lack of democratic decision making procedures.