A resolution by the European Parliament (EP) suggesting that a thorough environmental impact study of the Temelin plant should be conducted and the option of closing the plant considered has drawn severe criticism from both Czech officials and the European Commission.
The 15-page document on the state of the republic’s EU entry negotiations says it is still necessary to consider the “zero variant”, or the plant’s decommissioning, in connection with the possible surfacing of further shortcomings stemming from its construction. The EP commission recommends holding an international conference to consider possibilities for the decommissioning and international offers to finance it.
The authors of the passage, particularly Austrian and German Greens, celebrated it as proof of Temelin becoming a topic of the republic’s EU admission negotiations.
Representatives of other political parties, on the other hand, say that this is an ineffective concession to the Greens and Austrian deputies, because the European Commission has made it clear that it would not consider holding any conference on Temelin. Germany’s Elmar Brook, chairman of the EP foreign committee, has pointed to the provision of the general EP resolution on enlargement, which says that candidate countries cannot be required to fulfil stricter criteria than those demanded of the present member countries. At present, the EU itself has no common policy on safety at nuclear power facilities.
• Meanwhile, a recent study by the Nuclear Institute of Austrian Universities has found Temelin safe. Helmut Bock of the institute said that there is no reason why Temelin should not be activated, adding that it is comparable to similar facilities in western Europe.
