The promotion of nuclear energy based on the EURATOM Treaty can no longer be acceptable. The EURATOM Treaty must be scrutinized by the Convention on the Future of EU and the European Commission must actively support that. One key area for reform is the EURATOM loan facility - the Commission’s tool for handing out money for new reactors in the EU and Eastern Europe. Within the next weeks the Commission is expected to provisionally approve a proposal to increase the loan ceiling and will be asking Member States to unanimously approve its plan. The only loan application currently under active consideration is for a Canadian designed reactor in Romania (Cernavoda II).

"The Cernavoda project should not be financed by the EU and the whole Euratom loan facility should be phased out immediately" said Patricia Lorenz, Friends of the Earth Europe antinuclear campaigner "Rather programs to help accession countries with the development of sustainable energy systems must be accelerated".

At the conference, the Commission representative, Ms Nina Commeau-Yannoussis, head of the Euratom Coordination and Nuclear Safety Unit in DG TREN gave details of their intentions to present at the end of October a ‘nuclear package’ consisting of three directives on nuclear waste, decommissioning funds and binding nuclear standards for nuclear power plants in the EU. This ‘nuclear package’ is seen by many as the Commission’s attempts to avoid the fundamental reform of the EURATOM by giving it some new competences. Rather these new measures, if adopted, highlight the need for the immediate reform of EURATOM as it cannot safely promote the use of nuclear energy and enforcing high nuclear safety standards.

"Before any new power can be given to the dinosaur Euratom there must be reform, at the very least the removal of its promotional function and the introduction of joint decision making with the European Parliament’ says Patricia Lorenz of FoEE.