Nuclear battle back on

National governments will be fighting to keep their nuclear powers from Brussels next week, as controversial proposals appear once again on the table.

The so-called ‘nuclear package’ is up for debate EU ambassadors at their weekly behind the scenes meeting (known as Coreper) on Thursday, with no sign that things have eased since the last time it was discussed, in November 2003.

The UK, Germany, Sweden and Finland remain opposed, and are quite likely to find support in the newly enlarged Europe – particularly from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania.

And environmentalists will be writing to member states asking them to abstain from voting, in the hope of garnering enough opposition to have the proposals thrown out.

Friends of the Earth Europe are hopeful that Thursday will prove to be the end of the nuclear package, but industry insiders are not so sure.

“I don’t think the issue will crash at this stage”, one source told this website, predicting instead further wranglings at a technical level in the Atomic Questions Group.

The proposals have been changed several times since they were originally adopted at the start of 2003 – in effect leading to a gradual watering down.

But the opposing governments are still worried that by accepting these new nuclear laws they would be sacrificing more power to Brussels.

National representatives next week will discuss the possibility of separating the most controversial of the proposals – that on safety – from that relating to nuclear waste.

As it stands the safety proposal seems to pose no threat to national authorities, but governments are worried about the precedent it could set.

A 2001 European Curt of Justice (ECJ) ruling boosted the commission’s authority on nuclear safety issues.

After this date the commission suddenly found itself empowered to regulate on the safety of nuclear power plants; until then it had only really been concerned with the dangers of radioactive exposure.

The 2001 decision remains theoretical as no new laws have been passed based on it, but the nuclear package could change this.

Many feel that increasing the commission’s safety powers was misguided, with one insider pointing out that “judges in the court obviously aren’t safety inspectors”.

A coalition of member states has asked the commission to re-examine the issue, currently enshrined in the 1957 Euratom Treaty.

Austria last year tabled a proposal – with the backing of Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg and Estonia – asking that Euratom be updated before being grafted onto the European constitution.

And green groups also object to the fact that the body supposedly charged with overseeing nuclear safety – Euratom – is also responsible for promoting the “speedy establishment and growth of the nuclear industry”.

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