Friends of the Earth Europe is launching a new campaign calling for the Euratom Treaty to be scrapped. The European environmental network, represented in more than 30 countries, believes the 1957 agreement is out of date, undemocratic and biased towards nuclear power over other energy options. The organisation is calling on other civil society organisations to sign an "Abolish Euratom!" declaration, which will be presented to the Convention on the Future of Europe early next year.

The new campaign is also a head-on challenge to pro-nuclear Energy Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, coming as it does only four weeks after the Commission launched a new programme of Euratom laws and loans that if approved would significantly benefit nuclear industry. FoE Europe is insisting Commissioner de Palacio must at least suspend these new proposals until the Treaty is replaced by new common framework for EU energy strategy.

The sign-on declaration (text below) asks the European Constitutional Convention urgently to examine options to replace the Euratom Treaty as part of an expected new constitutional settlement in the enlarged EU. The Euratom Treaty has never been significantly changed by the radical changes in the EU’s political framework over the last decades and remains as the sole stand-alone sector specific Treaty. Consequently, Friends of the Earth believes that failure by the Convention to tackle Euratom would inevitably damage public confidence in the forthcoming European constitutional treaty.

"Euratom is out of date, undemocratic and biased," said Martin Rocholl, European Director of Friends of the Earth. "It is a relic from the past and needs to be replaced. An enlarged EU needs a common framework for its energy strategy that gives priority to clean renewable and efficient energy options, and does not maintain special favours for the dangerous and dirty nuclear sector."

"The current circumstances offer an unprecedented opportunity to get rid of Euratom. The European Convention and the forthcoming inter-governmental conference are expected to radically overhaul the framework of Europe’s founding treaties. The exclusion of the Euratom from these discussions is illogical and will undermine the validity of the whole process".


TEXT OF CIVIL SOCIETY SIGN-ON STATEMENT
click here


Contact: Mark Johnston, FoE Nuclear Campaigner (London, UK) +4479 7331 9249 or by email via abolish.euratom@foeeurope.org.

Briefings and reports on the Euratom campaign and other European nuclear issues are available on the FoE Europe Safe Energy Campaign website:
http://www.foeeurope.org/activities/nuclear/nuclear.htm

 

Friends of the Earth is the largest grassroots environmental network in the world 
campaigning to protect the environment and to create sustainable societies.
Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) unites more than 30 national member groups with thousands of local groups.