(June 19, 1998) All Soviet-designed reactors present a serious and imminent threat to environmental stability as well as to human health. After more than a decade of talking about upgrading the unsafe Soviet-designed reactors, most agreements and money are spent in "upgrading the safety culture", and not in improving the design deficiencies. Improving design faults is, of course, almost impossible, or at least extremely expensive. The decade-long discussion concentrate, however, mainly on the issue of technical improvement. And more important is that the problem of adequate safety culture in Eastern countries cannot be solved by technical measures: safety culture cannot be imported or purchased.

(June 19, 1998) In July 1997 the European Commission released `Agenda 2000' which laid out its proposals for the enlargement of the European Union in the coming 10 to 20 years. Agenda 2000 proposes that the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Cyprus should fall within the `first wave' of new countries joining the Union. The other accession countries - Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia - would also begin negotiations but are expected to take longer and would form the `second wave'.

Against the background of that accession process in which the EU would grow with 10 Central and Eastern European countries, the European Union now has to consider the situation of nuclear safety in those countries more seriously than before. The Commission formulates it this way: "The aim is the establishment of an efficient, sustainable and market-oriented energy sector, well suited to the individual country's needs".⁴

Some of the industrial processes that damaged the environment - the Soviet-designed nuclear power plants - continue to operate today. Even today, more than 12 years after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, there are 50 Soviet-designed reactors of various designs and differing safety standards operating in CEE countries and in the NIS. (For different types and design deficiencies click here to read about the safety of soviet-designed nuclear reactor types) The enlargement of the Union should be seen as both an opportunity to bring about the early closure of nuclear reactors and acceleration of the implementation of measures and policies which reduce damage to the environment, such as energy efficiency and renewable energy systems.
Only in East Germany have Soviet-designed reactors been assessed for inclusion into the European Union. There, five reactors were in operation at Greifswald, four VVER 440-230s and one VVER 440-213. In addition, three VVER 440-213s were also under construction at Greifswald and another two VVER 1000-320s at Stendal. In 1990, following reunification, all the reactors were temporarily closed and construction suspended to allow detailed analysis of the generic safety problems of reactors, along with the individual problems that each specific reactor posed. As a result, the first four reactors (the oldest VVERs) at Greifswald were permanently closed.
The German safety agency, Gesellschaft fuer Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) then put forward detailed technical proposals for Greifswald 5 (the VVER 440-213) and Stendal, should these reactors be awarded an operating or construction license. Consequently, these reactors were abandoned as the utility felt it was not economic for them to attempt to bring them up to German safety standards. At Greifswald the upgrading of a 213 model reactor (a second generation VVER), which had just become operational, was expected to amount to between DM500 million and DM2 billion (1991 equivalent - US$277 - 1.100 million). While at Stendal, for the completion of one VVER 1000-320 reactor, it was estimated that it would cost US$2.3billion to US$2.9 billion (1992 equivalent).⁵
The outcome of that process should be seen as the benchmark for nuclear safety for those countries wishing to enter the European Union.
As well as problems with safety levels of reactors, the unification process highlights environmental problems associated with other areas of the nuclear fuel cycle. In particular, the residual problems with uranium mining, the proposals for the disposal of radioactive wastes and the lack of plans -technical and economic - for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.
It is very likely that these problems would be experienced with the accession of CEE countries.

Nuclear Reactors in Accession Countries
 

(June 19, 1998) Over the past decade, considerable attention has been paid to the safety of Soviet-designed reactors and nuclear facilities. However, nuclear safety continues to give cause for serious concern and the Soviet-designed reactors do not meet international safety standards.
There are three areas in the field of nuclear plant safety that Agenda 2000 has identified as requiring international assistance:

CATEGORY 1:
Where Western-designed nuclear plants are in use, at Cernovoda in Romania and Krsko in Slovenia; developments should be monitored to ensure that operations comply with the appropriate safety standards.

CATEGORY 2:
Where the safety of Soviet-designed nuclear stations which are in operation or under construction, can be upgraded to meet international safety standards (VVER 440-213s and VVER 1000-320s), modernization programs should be fully implemented over a period of 7-10 years. (This applies to Dukovany and Temelin in the Czech Republic, Paks in Hungary, Bohunice V2 in Slovakia, Kozloduy 5 and 6 in Bulgaria, Mochovce in Slovakia).

CATEGORY 3:
The timetables agreed to by the governments concerned, subject to certain conditions, for the closure of non-upgradable units must be respected. (This applies to Bohunice V-1 in Slovakia, Ignalina in Lithuania and units 1-4 at Kozloduy in Bulgaria.)

So far little detail is available on what each of these program areas would cover and what specific technical changes the accession countries would have to undergo. However, the Commission has calculated that such programs would cost ECU 4-5 billion over the next 10 years.
The Commission's position on the status of the environment and energy sectors in the different accession countries, focusing on the nuclear situation, is shown on the next page.

4.1: Non-upgradable units to be closed?

The Commission claims that agreements have been reached on the closure of the reactors which cannot be upgraded to an acceptable level. However, there are worrying indications that these agreements are being postponed and their very existence being threatened. In late March 1998, the Commission adopted a "Communication" on nuclear sector-related activities for the applicant countries. This is the first time in some years that the Commission has put forward a paper of this kind, providing some remarkable insights in what happens to their ones-so-bravely-outspoken viewpoint on the actions to be taken regarding the most dangerous nuclear power plants in the CEE countries.
In the second part of the `Communication', by the European Commission²⁹, The way forward - New orientations, the three identified categories of reactors and the kind of approach is described quite differently, especially the third category of which was said (in Agenda 2000) that they were to be closed according to already set timetables.
Now it is said as follows:

"For the third category of reactors, the desired early closure of these reactors raise a number of important issues (....) At present, countries such as Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania can generate electricity at very low cost, but have made no or very little provision for the cost of decommissioning nuclear reactors. Until they can see means of financing alternative energy sources, radioactive waste management, the decommissioning and related social and regional aspects, they will continue to have difficulties in meeting agreed early closure timetables."³⁰

Following are examples of agreed timetables and the consequences for some of the reactors in the accession countries of not meeting those:
 

• Kozloduy, Bulgaria: Initially it was agreed that units 1-4 would be closed by 1998/2000. However, failure to install alternatives have forced a delay in this timetable and Agenda 2000 now suggests that closure of units 1 and 2 could be achieved in 2001, with units 3 and 4 in 2001/2, and even these are "depending on conditions being met".
   
• Ignalina, Lithuania: Unit 1 was supposed to be closed in 1999 and unit 2 in 2002. However, it appears that initiatives are already underway to significantly increase the operating life of the reactors and there are even suggestions that the reactors would be re-channelled (the effective replace- ment of the reactor core, which allows the operating life to be significantly increased) which would break international agreements. Of greatest concern is the proposal by the Ministry of Economy to sign long term electricity export contracts that would make the closure of Ignalina even less likely.³² Now the Commission, in its latest "Communication", admits that Ignalina unit 1 would not be closed before 2001 and unit 2 not before 2005.
   
• Bohunice, Slovakia: In 1994 the government agreed to close the first 2 reactors in 2000. However, in April 1996, the utility Slovenske Elektrarne (SE) has signed a contract on the gradual safety upgrading of V-1 with the consortium Rekon, formed by the Nuclear Power Plant Research Institute, Inc. Trnava and Siemens AG. The price of the contract is Sk (Slovak krones) 5.5 billion; total costs of the gradual upgrading are about Sk 6.4 billion (250 million ECU) the gradual upgrading will be performed during extended refuelling outages in 1996-1999. It now appears more likely that the reactors would be closed in 2003 and 2006, at the end of their design lives.³³

So, after nine months since Agenda 2000 was published in July 1997, the European Union again seems to be prepared to weaken its conditions on nuclear safety for the accession countries. But even if the EU would have stuck to its firm standpoints given earlier, the whole process of aid for upgrading programs would have led to a confusing and dangerous process.

4.2: Whose nuclear safety standards?

The Commission calls for the implementation of a modernization program over the next 7-10 years on those reactors that can be upgraded to meet international safety standards (second category). However, it is far from clear what this safety standard would actually be. This is because within the European Union, there is no such thing as a "fixed nuclear reactor safety standard". Given the lack of a single safety standard, it is difficult to be categorical about the "advantages" of EU reactors over those in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, some of the older reactors in EU member-states have some of the design shortcomings that cause concern in CEE countries. For example, most of the 35 nuclear power plants in the UK don't have a safety containment either. The twenty, gas-cooled Magnox reactors, of which some are more than 40 years old and most thirty years plus, all lack a containment. They also lack a modern, digital Instrumentation & Control system. Nevertheless, the Magnox plants were recently licensed to operate another 10 years.

Because there is no fixed safety standard, it is left to the individual governments and regulatory bodies to set their own national guidelines and regulations. That is why in the former East Germany, it was possible for specific safety standards to be set for the reactors.

4.2.1: Lack of a clear safety objective; K2/R4
Because there is no clear nuclear reactor safety standard, and thus to fully comprehend the extent of what some might say is deliberate confusion, it is necessary to look at a specific example. The most recent case surrounds the completion of Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4 (K2/R4) nuclear reactors in the Ukraine. Although Ukraine is not being considered for accession, these reactors are having the same criteria applied to them. As can be seen below, even those Western parties who are involved in the project have varying standards (the Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development [EBRD] are potentially joint funders of the project, while Riskaudit is the Western consultant assigned to undertake the safety review).

European Commission: "The Commission will insist that they [the reactors] should be completed not just to Russian or Ukrainian standards, but to full Western safety levels instead".³⁴

"Eventually allow the implementation of a safety level for these two units which is equivalent to the level currently achieved in Western Europe for plants of the same vintage designs".³⁵

EBRD: "These requirements will be applied for reactors under construction, where the retrofitting of adequate safety features will be required, in order to make the reactors acceptable under Western-type licensing practices".³⁶

"The safety of any nuclear plant we would be working on would have to be at the highest existing standard".³⁷

Riskaudit: "The project would allow safety of the plants to be comparable to the one achieved in Western countries for NPPs of the same generation recently approved or re-approved by national safety authorities". ³⁸

It can be seen that the proposed safety standard ranges from "the highest existing standard" to "acceptable under Western-type licensing practices". Both of these standards could be said to bring the reactors up to "international standards", but can also be interpreted in a totally different manner.

A proposed standard is further complicated by an existing two-tier system based on operating and future reactors. The IAEA's basic safety principles report allows an order of magnitude difference between the safety required of existing rather than future reactors.³⁹ In the case of K2/R4, some safety agencies are assuming that a comparison can be made with already operating reactors as opposed to future, incomplete reactors which would require a higher safety standard.

4.2.2: Lack of a clear safety objective; Temelin
The lack of clear safety standards is also highlighted when comparing the proposed Western completion projects for VVER 1000s, that of Temelin in the Czech Republic and the K2/R4 in Ukraine. In both cases the reactors are supposed to be completed to Western safety standards. By taking the specific example of the reactors' instrument and control system (I&C), it is possible to see how large the differences are.
For Temelin, being completed with funding from the United States Export-Import Bank, it was stated:

"A number of studies of the VVER reactors series have been performed by Western organizations, including the prestigious International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). All have concluded that the Soviet instrument and control (I and C) systems are not adequate and adversely affect safety".⁴⁰

It was subsequently stated by the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) that the addition of a" )modern" instrumentation and control system was necessary to eliminate design shortcomings and make the plant "comparable with contemporary systems in the West".⁴¹
However, the current proposals for K2/R4 do not include the replacement of the Instrumentation and Control systems. Rather, they state, "For K2/R4, the computers will be replaced, at a cost of the order US$25 million per unit but construction is regarded as too far advanced for replacement of the old analogue system to be feasible".⁴²

The Commission`s Opinion of the State of the Environment and Energy Sector in Accession Countries with Nuclear Power programs³¹

Country: Bulgaria
Energy: It must in the medium term modernize the units for which this is possible, so that they meet internationally accepted standards; and keep its understanding to close those which cannot be modernized according to the conditions set in the 1993 Agreement
Environment: Full compliance with the acquis could only be expected in the very long term.

Country: Hungary
Energy: It [Paks] needs to modernize this in the medium term in order to bring it up to internationally accepted safety standards. It will also need to find a solution for nuclear waste.
Environment: Full compliance with the acquis could only be expected in the long to very long term.

Country: Lithuania
Energy: It has committed itself to closing the nuclear plant at Ignalina and must maintain the agreed timetable for this. In the meantime it must make the necessary short-term adjustments to bring safety procedures to internationally accepted standards.
Environment: Full compliance with the acquis could only be expected in the long term.

Country: Czech Republic
Energy: The modernization program needed to bring the nuclear plants at Dukovany and Temelin up to internationally accepted safety standarts must be completed within 7-10 years.
Environment: Partial compliance with the acquis could be achieved on the medium term. Full compliance could only be achieved in the long term.

Country: Romania
Energy: Romania has at Cernovoda a nuclear power station which produces around 8% of the country`s electricity. It was built in accordance with western technology. A solution will need to be found to the problem of nuclear waste.
Environment: Full compliance with the acquis could be expected only in the very long term.

Country: Slovenia
Energy: Slovenia has a nuclear power plant station at Krsko, which it shares with Croatia, and wich produces 20% of its electricity. It was built according to western technology. A solution needs to be found for its nuclear waste.
Environment: Full compliance with the acquis could be expected only in the long term.

Country: Slovakia
Energy: Slovakia has a nuclear power station at Bohunice that produces nearly 50% of the country`s electricity and is constructing a new power station at Mochovce. It must in the medium term modernize two of the units at Bohunice to bring them up to internationally accepted safety standards, and must take the appropriate measures to close the units which cannot be modernized. A long term solution needs to be found for nuclear waste.
Environment: Full compliance with the acquis could only be expected in the long to very long term.

(June 19, 1998) On June 5, the Government of the United Kingdom announced reprocessing at the plant in Dounreay will stop in the year 2006. This should not be assessed as a victory: it is the inevitable. In fact the statement revealed that an US$33 million expenditure must have been approved to repair part of the plant.

(494/extra.4887) NENIG - The UK Government's announcement on June 5 that no more commercial reprocessing will be carried out at Dounreay is not what it first appears and, in fact, brings little for opponents to welcome - as it really only accepts the inevitable - and much to continue concern about the operation of the plant and its environmental discharges as it gives the plant the go-ahead to continue work as before.
The Government's apparent sudden turn-around in policy - the Prime Minister and other Ministers were defending Dounreay's future only days earlier - probably had more to do with the elections for the new Scottish Parliament in 11 months, and Labour concerns over the political capital the Scottish Nationalist's were making from Dounreay, than any other reason.

In fact the Government has succeeded in disguising the fact it has approved spending an estimated GBP40 million (US$66 million) on repairing and improving the two reprocessing plants so work can continue as planned for at least another eight years. Before work in the main D1206 plant can re-start reprocessing the remaining 15 tonnes of PFR fuel (the Prototype Fast Reactor) and the breeder fuel from the DFR (the Dounreay experimental Fastbreeder Reactor) reactor (both located at the Dounreay site) major repairs have to be made replacing the faulty dissolver which leaked in September 1996 and closed the plant. These repairs are estimated to cost GBP20 million and the Government statement revealed this expenditure must have been approved - without having to directly mention the decision and face any resulting criticism.

The regulators' safety audit currently underway at Dounreay is certain to recommend improvements and repairs to both D1206 and the D1204 highly-enriched uranium plant. Speaking on Radio Scotland on June 6, the Dounreay director Dr Roy Nelson said an estimated additional GBP20m will have to be spent bringing the plants to standard. This expenditure was also implicitly approved in the governments statement - again without the necessity of a separate announcement.
So the Government has succeeded in regaining the political initiative, at least in the short-term, and appeared to be taking strong action to protect the environment, when in fact it has approved huge expenditure - at least GBP40m - to allow reprocessing to continue.

The Government statement said there would be no new commercial reprocessing at Dounreay - but existing contracts would be honoured. Dr Nelson said that there was about one tonne of spent fuel waiting to be reprocessed, although he gave no details of the contracts. The reprocessing plants will close when work on these contracts and Dounreay's own spent fuel has been completed - estimated to be by 2006. In the meantime reprocessing - and environmental discharges - will restart once the regulators are happy and repairs completed.
There is yet another aspect of the announcement which shows how shrewd the Government's move was. Banning any new commercial work at Dounreay means much less than first appears. The only new commercial work at all likely for the D1204 plant was for 1,000 spent fuel elements at the Lucas Heights reactor in Australia. Even Dounreay's management accepted that the regulators were unlikely to agree to the plant staying open for any longer. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) had already rejected UKAEA requests to be allowed to do commercial work in D1206 - at least until all the fast reactor fuel had been reprocessed after which the DTI was most likely to close the plant.

In practice, therefore, the Government's announcement to end commercial reprocessing at Dounreay effectively only confirmed the obvious.

More fuel imported from Georgia as admitted
In the second week of June it was disclosed that UK government ministers were not told that a total of 14kgs of fuel was imported from Georgia - not 4.2kg of unirradiated highly-enriched uranium and 0.8kg of irradiated HEU, as Government Ministers, and Dounreay, originally announced (see WISE NC 491.4870: International row over waste to Dounreay) The government has also admitted that more fuel from the former Soviet Union may be taken to Dounreay for reprocessing. This announcement caused anger among opposition MPs as it was made only days after Mr Battle announced an end to commercial reprocessing at Dounreay - only the fuel already on-site would be reprocessed he said only four days earlier. The Government's justification for importing the fuel from Georgia was a security and proliferation risk involving weapons-grade HEU, but weapons cannot be made out of low-enriched uranium.

Source: NBase Briefing, 6 & 13 June 1998

Contact: NENIG, Bains Beach, Commercial Street, Lerwick, Shetland ZE1 0AG Scotland, UK.
Tel & Fax: +44-1595-694099
Email: n-base@zetnet.co.uk
WWW: www.users.zetnet.co.uk/n-base/

(June 19, 1998) Over the last 12 years the European Union has been undertaking a great number of activities in the nuclear sector in Central and Eastern European countries. The work started against the background of the very clear perception (Chernobyl, more openness and, therefore, more information) of the disastrous situation in the nuclear installations in the former Soviet Union.
The fundamental political changes in this part of Europe offered new possibilities. In the first years after the Chernobyl accident, the different European countries, the European Union, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a variety of national bodies working on nuclear issues, and even the nuclear industry (not to mention the environmental NGOs!) were pledging the immediate closure of a whole range of older Soviet-built reactors. Adolf Huttl, head of the Nuclear Energy Division of Siemens International, one of the largest nuclear power plant constructors, rejected the upgrading of the RBMK reactors, stating: "The only answer is to shut them down as soon as possible".⁶ Klaus Töpfer, then Germany's environmental minister, was quoted in Izvestia, saying it is necessary to close down all 16 Soviet RBMK reactors.⁷
The changes in Eastern Europe provided the nuclear industry with a last chance to reverse its decline. Just when the order book was empty a new market appeared. Although the initial opportunities seemed small, only smaller upgrading projects, it must be clear that the nuclear industry works to very long lead times. Winning those early contracts are optimistically seen as a way to get a foot in the door.

In order to assist with the financing of the safety upgrading programs, the G7 in 1992 established the Nuclear Safety Account (NSA), managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The safety upgrading program was not designed to extend the lifetime of the high-risk reactors but to make them safer in the period they were still to be in operation: "Finance from the NSA is not used to extend the operating lifetime of unsafe reactors".⁸Immediate closure was seen as impossible or at least very difficult because the share of electricity produced by nuclear power in some of the concerned countries was (and is) considerable: Lithuania 85%, Ukraine 44%. The share in Bulgaria grew from 33% in 1990⁹ to 45%.¹⁰ Even contracts for the smallest feasibility studies have brought on a "feeding frenzy" as firms fight for the chance to have a contract. Westinghouse, for instance, at the end of the 1980s was quite in trouble in the West (the company has been in court in the US, accused of knowingly supplying faulty equipment¹¹ and has made a settlement out of court with the government of the Philippines after being accused of bribing former dictator Ferdinand Marcos with more than US$17 million through a business associate.)¹²It publicly stated in 1990 it would "aggresively pursue opportunities in Eastern Europe".¹³
In preparation for the July 1993 Tokyo G7 summit, the World Bank and the International Energy Agency (IAE) produced an economic analysis on how best to reduce the nuclear risk in the region. The six countries investigated (Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Armenia and Slovakia) all showed the same results; least-cost scenarios involved the rapid shutdown of high-risk reactors. The total costs of the program was estimated to be between US$18 billion to US$24 billion.
Even more important, a study leaked in June 1993 concluded that it would be technically possible by the mid-1990s and without loss of power capacity.¹⁴
It was just too good to be true.
In the following years, as the CEE countries and the NIS regained self-confidence, the Western nuclear industry realized it was far more worth-while to find money for upgrading activities, and the European Union found itself in quite some internal trouble, the negotations were stranded, and at the tenth anniversary of the disaster in Chernobyl (April 26, 1996), the conclusion was clear: none of the first-mentioned high-risk reactors were closed.

In a recent report¹⁵, the European Commission gave an overview of instruments and assistance programs it had been using to achieve the initial goals. In an assessment of the results, the EC gave its own thoughts on the main factors which downplayed the results (although it concluded that the results are reasonably good).
According to the EC, the main factors decreasing the results are:

• The number of nuclear installations and the amount of nuclear materials are so large that efforts from outside to improve nuclear safety and security remain necessarily incommensurate with the needs;
• It has taken time to find a common understanding between the parties to agree on shortcomings and defining suitable solutions. The legacy of the past of the partner countries thereby played an important role. Legal and practical approaches and needs for Community programs were not familiar to our partners (such as nuclear-liability coverage and tendering procedures);
• Our own requirements for programing lead to slowness in project implementation.¹⁶

These conclusions are revealing. They seem to be saying the following:

• We in the West do not know that much about the situation in the former Soviet Union;
• Those communists were too stupid to understand what we, the West, understood under 'safety', 'liability', a 'contract';
• Our bureaucracy and internal Western problems slowed down the safety improvements;
• The countries involved managed very well to (sometimes with a clear blackmail strategy) get the highest benefit out of the Western programs without giving in.

In general, while looking at the comments the Commission itself gives, one can conclude that the different programs and instruments failed to achieve their main objectives - closure of the high risk reactors, and implementation of the safety measures at the shortest possible time while clearly agreeing to their closure date.
Up till now, the EU has undertaken efforts in the following areas in accession countries:

• Nuclear power plant safety - on-site assistance program. This is the largest focus area. A "unique mechanism" for the transfer of safety culture and for the introduction of specific safety improvements through equipment deliveries. So far, 14 nuclear plants (only Kozloduy in the accession countries) have signed a twinning scheme with EU utilities. Besides this, NSA agreements for early closure have been signed with Lithuania (Ignalina RBMKs) and Bulgaria (VVER 440/230s at Kozloduy);
• Regulatory authorities: in all CEE/NIS countries with nuclear reactors, the EC has set up PHARE and TACIS projects to transfer "methodology and practices of Western safety culture";
• Nuclear fuel cycle installations and radioactive waste management: projects to "understand the scale, the scope and safety" of current waste, as well as current practices;
• Radiation protection: main focusing on train-ing of regulatory authorities, also for customs officers in radiation measurement to illicit nuclear trafficking;
• Off-site emergency preparedness: an assessment is completed of needs in the areas of local, regional and national off-site emergency response in some 14 East European countries. Projects concern monitoring and early-warning systems, communications, decision support systems and online data exchange;
• Research on nuclear fission safety: participation of Eastern research organizations in EC nuclear safety research programs;
• The Commission's services are considering Euratom loans for Kozloduy 5 and 6, and the modernization of VVER-1000 reactors to "Western safety standards". Euratom loans are also consider-ed for projects in the Ukraine and Russia.¹⁷

Besides all these, the EC is also involved in other non-accession countries' nuclear programs: for instance, the closure of Chernobyl, projects for the "redirection" of nearly 19,000 unemployed nuclear weapons scientists and engineers in the NIS countries¹⁸, but also the supply of Light Water Reactors to North Korea: the EU pays 75 million ECU to the KEDO consortium.¹⁹
Since 1991, the international community has in total given and pledged approximately 1.5 billion ECU in grants for nuclear safety programs in CEE countries and the former Soviet Union (half from PHARE and TACIS, the two major aid programs for economic restructuring used for nuclear issues in CEE and in the NIS, respectively). The majority have been directed towards the former Soviet Union. Therefore, over the past seven years, about 500-million ECU in grants has been allocated to the accession countries.²⁰This represents only grants from the international community and do not take into consideration the national upgrading programs.
The European Commission anticipates that a nuclear safety program for the accession countries is likely to cost 4-5 billion ECU over the next 7-10 years.²¹

(June 19, 1998) Oil still is the most important source of energy for the European economies. The dependency reached its peak in 1973, when oil accounted for 67% of energy consumption. By the end of the 1980s, the figure had levelled off to 45%. More than four-fifths of the oil consumed in the Union had to be imported from outside. This portion would rise in the near future when the oil reserves in the North Sea ran out. Roughly, two-thirds of the oil import came from the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC). Import dependence for natural gas is over a third. Since the 1980s Russia has been the leading supplier. European coal cannot compete with cheap imported coal. EU imports some 90% of its natural uranium needs.
One of the priority objectives of the EU-energy policy is to "reduce the vulnerability" (dependency of oil states in the Gulf region) and develop alternative supply.

Development of the European Energy Policy
No provision was made for a common energy policy as such when the European Communities were first established. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) created the institutional framework for coal in 1951 and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) did the same for nuclear power in 1957. The other energy sources fell within the scope of the European Economic Community (EEC), also established in 1957, though there was no direct reference to energy policy in the treaty.

After a few years it became clear that the ECSC and Euratom would not live up to initial expectations. Cheap and plentiful energy imports played their role in the economic growth in the 60s. But in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis the European governments joined the International Energy Agency (IEA), established in 1974 under the auspices of the OECD (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) of which Western countries and the European Commission are members). The agency agreed to build up a joint reserve, to be used if oil supplies were interrupted. The EC only played a subsidiary role in this. In 1983, the Council (Energy), granted the Community the power to formulate its own energy policy for the first time. The European Commission responded by presenting the report, "The Internal Energy Market" (1988). Through a far-reaching liberalization of the European energy market, the Commission hopes to promote growth in the gas and electricity industries, increase the flexibility of the European energy system, and remove obstacles that hinder integration at the national level.

The EU has a whole range of instruments which they can use to intervene in the energy industries in the member-states; competition rules and trade standards, price limits and quotas, technical standards, limit values, supervisory powers, information systems, subsidies and investment credits. Its power to intervene directly is the greatest in relation to the coal and nuclear industries. Of course the autonomy of the EU is tempered by the involvement of the member-states.
The EU's decision-making procedures are quite diverse and not that easy to follow. In general, the European Commission has a strong hand in areas governed by the ECSC and Euratom Treaties: as a supranational supervisory body and the Community's representative on the international scene, it acts directly and autonomously. Irrespective of the Union's formal powers, the extreme politicization of many energy-related issues means that lengthy discussions are needed on every level of the institutional structure of the EU before any agreement can be reached.

Traditionally, the EU's efforts to develop new energy sources have focused on nuclear power (fission and fusion). However, more important is the fact that energy in the EU budget is very marginal. Energy is one of the fields almost entirely decided upon in the individual member-states and not on the EU level.
 

(June 19, 1998) All European Union member states are at the same time member of Euratom, the Atomic Energy Community of the EU. Euratom is established way back in the fifties and it's main aim was (and still is): "to contribute to the raising standard of living in the Member States and to the development of relations with the other countries by creating the conditions necessary for the speedy establishment and growth of nuclear industries"⁴³.
The accession to the Euratom Treaty will have consequences for CEE countries in many different areas of which we describe some.

5.1: Euratom Supply Agency

Since the establishment of Euratom in 1958, the Euratom Supply Agency is responsible for secur-ing ample supply of nuclear fuels in the Euratom countries. In the 1950s it was feared there would soon be a shortage of uranium. However, in the past 40 years, there has never been a scarcity of nuclear fuels. The ESA has the exclusive right to conclude contracts for delivery of nuclear materials and is formally also owner of all nuclear materials in the EU countries.

Since 1991 the ESA controls the uranium import from CIS based on Article 81 of the Euratom Treaty. When Sweden became an EU member in 1994, its nuclear utilities were forced to lower their uranium imports from Russia from 40% to 20% of their annual uranium needs. The extra costs were calculated at about US$38 million a year, because Russian uranium prices were much lower at that time than those of other uranium producers.⁴⁴ The extra costs for the Swedish utilities will have decreased now, since the price difference between NIS (New Independent States) and non-NIS-supplied uranium has become less in the last few years.
However, Finnish utilities (Finland became an EU member state at the same time) were allowed to continue buying the same amount of Russian-produced uranium. Reason for that is the fact that two of the four Finnish nuclear reactors are Sovietdesigned VVER reactors and thus use fuel with a different design.⁴⁵ European suppliers don't yet produce VVER fuel because Russia does not want to give the fuel design characteristics.
The Euratom Supply Agency has from the beginning the exclusive right to conclude contracts for delivery of nuclear materials and is formally also owner of all nuclear materials in the EU countries. One exception applies to Special Fissile Materials (plutonium and high-enriched uranium). These are left to the disposal of the producer, to be stocked or to be used for his own needs or to be placed at the disposal of other connected companies. Export of special fissile materials outside the EU can only happen by the ESA after approval of the Commission.
With the exception of the special fissile fuels, in practice the ESA has only a strict formal function: officially they must sign each contract in which nuclear fuels or services are sold or bought. Since 1960 the utilities were allowed the right to conclude their own contracts and only send the contracts afterwards to the ESA for signing.

Euratom quota policy
The reason Sweden was forced to lower the import of Russian uranium is the `informal' quota policy of ESA, regarding the import of natural uranium and enriched services from outside the EU. ESA uses a theoretical ceiling for uranium of 25% dependency on a single uranium-producing region, such as NIS or North America, in the name of supply diversification and 20% for a single country or supplier. Therefore Russia is not allowed a larger market share than about 20%. An obligation of the Czech national electricity company to buy domestic uranium would infringe EC law, but because uranium mining is phased out anyway in the Czech Republic, no problems are expected with that. But the European Commission notes also that Bulgaria's accession could increase overall EU dependence on Russian uranium and that the country, after accession, would need to abide by the EC's policy of security through diversification.⁴⁶
The quota policy is "informal", because it has never been officially published. The policy is aimed to assure diversification and security of supply and to protect the European enrichment industry (Eurodif and Urenco). Together, these two European enrichers have a EU market share of about 80% and Russia has the remaining 20%.⁴⁷ So an important consequence of this policy is the protection of the European enrichment companies, which each have 40% of the EU market.

CEE nuclear utilities
There are 20 Soviet-designed reactors in operation in the Central and Eastern European countries, which buy all their nuclear fuel from Russia. If the same EU policy is applied to those countries as was to Finland, most CEE utilities would be allow-ed to continue to buy cheap Russian fuel (uranium and enrichment service) when they have become EU member as long as fuel production technology for the different Soviet-designed reactors is not available in the West. Therefore their nuclear fuel costs would stay about the same, unless Russia starts asking higher prices. That is quite possible: Russia more than doubled reprocessing prices in the last years. That's why some countries stopped reprocessing their spent fuel.

Westinghouse got access to VVER fuel design characteristics during upgrading work of the Czech Temelin VVER-1000 reactors in the last years. It got a contract to fabricate two first cores and four reloads for Temelin.⁴⁸ The company will seize each opportunity to capture part of the CEE nuclear fuel market, for both VVER-440 (which has a different fuel design) and VVER-1000 reactors. Western fuel companies as BNFL, Siemens, ABB and Framatome are also interested in this new market, where Russia currently has a near-monopoly.
From the moment Western fuel fabricators are capable of producing fuel for each VVER-type reactors, the ESA will most likely not allow any longer a larger than 20% share of Russian fuel. Those countries could then be forced to sign more expensive contracts with non-NIS uranium suppliers. But for this also, the future is not very clear: no clear policy for this part of the accession is established. Although Russian uranium and fuel prices will continue to rise, and price difference with Western service will decrease, it's very likely that nuclear fuel prices will increase in the accession countries.

5.2: Euratom safeguards

If countries join the European Union they, like all EU countries, become subject to Euratom safeguards. From 1958 on the Euratom Safeguards Agency has carried out safeguard inspections at civil nuclear facilities in the member-states, to ensure that no diversion of nuclear materials take place "for other than intended uses". However, the Euratom Treaty allows `intended use' to be also 'military use'. This is in contrast with the IAEA safeguards, which do not allow any diversion of civil nuclear material into a military program. The IAEA, however, has no right to safeguard the nuclear weapon states other than at a small number of selected facilities on a voluntarily basis. In 1996 the IAEA inspected only one nuclear installation in France and four in the United Kingdom.⁴⁹ Safeguard agreements with the IAEA of the accession countries will be changed in agreements between Euratom and the IAEA.
At first sight it might seem the Euratom inspections are more strict than the IAEA's, but there are important differences. The EU countries are the only ones which have a regional safeguards system, where the Euratom Safeguards Agency controls the nuclear materials and the IAEA only verifies the Euratom inspections. This comes down to self-control. In other countries there is some jealousy about the special treatment. Especially in Northeast Asian countries (China, Japan, South Korea) there has since long been discussion on this theme, and they are talking of establishing Asiatom.⁵⁰
Inside the EU non-nuclear weapon states, it is Euratom which carries out all the inpections. The IAEA controls mainly the data which it receives each month from Euratom. IAEA inspectors participate in less than 50% of all Euratom inspections.
Euratom reports movements and inventories of nuclear materials to IAEA. Although the European Commission promised to send Euratom Safeguard Reports to the EP on a biannual basis, no such report has been made public since 1992.

Euratom-USA agreement
In November 1995 a new agreement for nuclear cooperation between the European Union and the United States was signed. Main criticism was the failure from the US to keep control of nuclear material once it is inside the EU. The US Nuclear Control Institute stated: "The new agreement cedes to Euratom full control over US-supplied nuclear reactors, technology and materials in the European Union".⁵¹

In the future, it will be up to Euratom members to decide whether their particular uses and re-transfer of these items are consistent with the US non-proliferation requirements. Euratom's new members will have full rights and privileges to nuclear materials and technology originating from the US, with no US consent whatever.

5.3: Euratom loans

Euratom loans were introduced to help finance the construction of nuclear installations in the EU. In 1990 the Council increased the amount to 4,000 million ECU. But inside the EU less and less use was made of the loans. By the end of 1996 the amount of outstanding loans was only 572 million ECU.⁵²
In 1994 Euratom loans were also made available to "certain countries" outside the EU, by which was meant the CEE countries. 1,100 million ECU could be lent to finance upgrading and completion of nuclear reactors. Up to now, no CEE country has made use of the Euratom loans. Under dicussion are loans for the completion of the Ukrainian Kmelnitsky-2 and Rovno-4 reactors, the Kalinin 3 reactor in Russia and for upgrading and modernization of the Kozloduy 5 and 6 reactors in Bulgaria, but no decisions have been made yet. In contrast to financing by the EBRD, which is limit-ed to at most 30% of the costs, Euratom loans are allowed to cover 50% of the costs of construction. Euratom loans also form part of the Agenda 2000 financial instruments.

The criteria for projects eligible for loans is very broad requiring only that the projects had "received a favorable opinion from the Commission in technical and economic terms".
Therefore, the Commission has to undertake both a technical (safety) and economic review of the projects. The safety analysis is undertaken by the PHARE/TACIS Nuclear Safety Expert Group (NSEG), under the direction of Directorate General 1A. This body is comprised of representatives of member-states, which give a consensus opinion on the project. The economic analysis is undertaken by the Commission which prepares the assessment of the justification of the project, taking into account a specific recommendation from the European Investment Bank on the economic and financial aspects.
The final decision of the Commission is made by the full Cabinet of Commissioners.⁵³

5.4: Euratom Treaty already invalid?

In a recent report⁵⁴, an interesting argument about the validity of the Euratom Treaty is described.
Contrary to the European Steel and Coal Community (SCSC) Treaty, there is no expiry date for the Euratom Treaty. However, one could say that the treaty has already expired because the main objective (create conditions for nuclear energy to grow) is no longer necessary. In the EU, 14 of the 15 member-states have come to reject any growth in nuclear capacity, so Article 1 is no longer valid. The European Commission called the nuclear industry in Europe a mature industry. But then there is no need to create the conditions for it to grow if it's already mature. In that case Article 1 is outdated.
Therefore, if the treaty's objective has been removed, the treaty itself cannot be considered valid any longer. It must be considered defunct.

There is a growing movement for revision of the Euratom Treaty. However, it is very difficult of members of the European Parliament (MEP) to have influence on it. There is not even a requirement for the Commission to consult the European Parliament over the illustrative nuclear programs. The parliament is almost totally ignored on international agreements (like paying 75 million ECU for nuclear reactors in North Korea), although the treaty calls for consultations on those issues.
The parliament tried hard to revise the Euratom Treaty at the June 1997 Amsterdam Council meeting, also because of the Accession program, but at the end of the day nothing happened. One or two member-states, and mainly France, have consistently refused any changes in the treaty, and because of the need for unanimous decisions, they succeeded.

(June 19, 1998) On June 8, the German newspaper die Tageszeitung revealed a severe accident. About 300 workers were contaminated with plutonium after an explosionin the Nukem fuel plant in Hanau, Hessen Germany on 20 January 1987,more than 11 years ago. This accident has never been reported before.

(494/extra.4886) WISE Amsterdam - Nukem had reported an accident in early 1987, but a 'minor' one in February, and not the one on January 20. However, at least since March last year the Ministry of Environment had a report of the Hanau public persecution office (Staatsanwaltschaft) in which was reported that an 'accident involving an explosion' had been kept secret by Nukem. There was no details in the report about the how and when. However the public persecution office asked the ministry not to publish the report.
Last December on a public meeting in Hanau the 'thesis of a secluded accident' was mentioned. Then the authorities ordered an investigation. Four experts, on order from the Hanauer public persecution office (Staatsanwaltschaft), wrote a report about it and handed it over to public persecution office on April 6, 1998. The German newspaper die Tageszeitung (Taz) somehow got a copy of the report and published about the accident on June 8. The newest report from April 1998 has yet to be evaluated by experts from the Ministry and the Oeko-Institute, which is expected to be ready this summer.

To hush up the explosion, measurements of emissions during January and February 1987 were not mentioned in the annual Nukem radiation protection report. On photographs of the buildings, made at that time, damage can be seen. Internal Nukem documents notice the accident.

According to the Taz, several from the 300 contaminated workers have apparently died from cancer. Nukem however refuses to give the names of the contaminated workers. Nukem denies workers were contaminated and said the explosion had become prescriptive, since it happened more than 10 years ago. This may not be true, because the public persecution office had already extended the period of their investigation to the time of the old Nukem/-Transnuklear scandal, in search of proof for the causes of the death of a former Nukem worker who received large doses in the 70s. A half year ago, the Bundesverband Buergerinitiativen Umweltschutz (BBU) brought a criminal charge against Nukem because the worker had died of cancer, caused by radiation received during his work. This was posthumous acknowledged by the competent professional society.
The expert report says there have been heavy irregularities from February 1997 on with the accounting of radiation doses from workers. The BBU called on the Ministry of Environment to install a Special Working Group to investigate the complete Nukem complex.

Both Alkem and Nukem were accused in 1987 for violation of the German Atomic Law, because they had no legal license and had changed and expanded the plants without giving notice. Ministry officials from the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD) had given licenses in advance, without public inquiries. Alkem (owned at that time by Siemens and Nukem) fabricated plutonium fuel for the Kalkar fast breeder and for German nuclear reactors. If the January 1987 explosion had become public, Nukem and Alkem knew for sure they would not have received a license. It is remarkable that the accident was successfully hidden for eleven years.

The second accident in 1987, end-February, was not that `harmless'. About 200 milligram plutonium should have been released. At least eight workers received radiation doses far above the permitted annual dose. Nukem did not even have a licence to handle plutonium. Four uranium fuel samples, received from the Nuclear Research Institute in Karlsruhe, but which originated from the Euratom Transuranium Institute in Karlsruhe, were 'mysteriously' mixed with plutonium, which was not mentioned on the package, Minister Steger of Economic Affairs said later.

By coincidence, the Green Party/Social Democrats coalition in the state of Hessen ended in February 1987 after one year, when the Green minister of Environment, Joschka Fischer, was fired by SPD prime-minister Boerner. The Greens had asked the SPD not to give a licence to the Alkem and Nukem fuel plants at Hanau. The SPD refused to give in to the Green Party and agreed to a further 10 year operation of Alkem, but decided not to license an expansion of the Alkem plant.
In April 1987 in Hessen, the SPD lost the elections. The Christian Democrats and the Liberals (FDP) formed a new government. It is ironical that this, pro-nuclear, government had to decide, after new accidents and incidents, to close the old Nukem plant. A new Alkem MOX plant, planned to start operating in 1989, never functioned.
In March 1991, the CDU Minister of Environment in Hessen, unexpectedly granted the last partial license for the new Siemens MOX plant (Nukem had sold it share to Siemens), just a few weeks before a new Green-red coalition took over. SPD and the Greens decided to review the license. In June 1991 Green Minister Joschka Fischer ordered the closure of the Siemens MOX plant. In spite of all attempts by Siemens and the Federal Government to fight this order and to get the MOX plant licensed, it was of no avail. In July 1997 Nukem reported it would dismantle the old Nukem uranium plant. All Hanau fuel plants are closed now. The dismantling and decontamination of the closed plants will probably reveal more cases of contamination. End of January 1998, Siemens applied for a license to dismantle the old MOX fuel plant, which was idled after an 1991 accident. By 2003 the work will be ready: estimated costs: DM 1 billion (about US$450 million).

Sources:

Highest cesium levels in large part of Europe since Chernobyl 1986.

(June 19, 1998) A radioactive cloud was drifting over southern Europe early June. Higher cesium-137 levels were measured in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany. Highest level was measured in Switzerland where over 1,000 times above normal levels were detected, but they had since then returned to normal. Of course there were reassuring statements from the authorities.
A steel factory in Algeciras (southern Spain) was found to be the cause. A cesium source was smelted as scrap metal. Although not completely sure it is likely the source was medical X-ray equipment. It is strange that the factory where the radiation was set free only was located nine days later and after half of Europe was looking where the cesium came from.
El Pais (Spain), 18 June 1998; Reuters, 13 June 1998
 

(June 19, 1998) Nuclear (un-)safety will be on many European political agendas in the next months or even years. Over the last years, the countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have been standing in line to gain access to the European Union. At present the EU is composed of 15 countries. But 11 countries (10 CEE countries and Cyprus) are set to join the EU in the coming decades. By seeking admission, they hope to have access to EU financial aid for poorer regions, to get money to develop their industries and to gain access to the European Union single market. The principles and conditions for accession are described in the so-called Agenda 2000 which also contains some words on nuclear safety.

After the disaster of Chernobyl in 1986 everybody - including the nuclear sector and politicians - said that all unsafe reactors in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union had to be shut down. But this did not happen. At the moment 50 Soviet-designed reactors are in operation in the CEE countries and NIS (New Independent States; the former Soviet Union). The West is divided about which action to follow. It has an inconsistent policy.

While the EU member-states have to tighten their belts to meet the agreed common standards for a common currency in Europe, the EU has spent hundreds of millions of ECU^* for all kinds of different research and upgrade programs in Central and Eastern Europe. In the coming years the European Commission will be spending additional hundreds of millions on upgrading activities. This money will be spent although it has already been clear for years now that closure and help with really sustainable energy programs is, besides being environmentally sound and safe, even more economical.

Since 1994 the Euratom loans (established to spend on promotion of nuclear energy within the EU) can also be allocated for nuclear projects in Eastern Europe.
But, nevertheless, these will not be enough. In a recent report, the European Commission said of Eastern Europe that "the number of nuclear installations and the amount of nuclear material are so big that the attempts from outside to improve nuclear safety and security remain necessarily incommensurate with the needs".¹ Some Eastern European governments see their chances in getting financial aid and are blackmailing the West: if you don't give us money, we will keep running unsafe nuclear power plants. The EU is not preventing this kind of policy by failing to secure closure time schedules for those reactors, and a clear policy for financing alternative replacement capacity.

The worrying indications that the issue of nuclear safety would again be downplayed are increasing. The West is divided about which action to follow. While conducting an inconsistent policy, it keeps transferring large amounts of ECUs in the direction of Eastern Europe. The funds seem to be mainly profitable to Western big reactor builders and consultancy firms.

"The European Union's assistance should be driven by the following basic concerns: (..)
- The recognition that a further major incident involving a nuclear power plant in an eastern country would undermine the nuclear power sector in the EU Member-States, which produces a large percentage of electricity".²

More important, however, is the fact that no one seems to know what will happen when the concerned countries become full members of the EU. Already in the process towards full membership, one can see a shift in the current EU members' policies. The agreements on earlier closure of the so-called high-risk reactors are weakened and the commission fully admits that it is pretty much unsure what would happen when the countries have their more direct influence implemented.
In June 1998, Austria will take over the EU presidency from the United Kingdom (presidency rotates every half year), and it will very probably focus attention on some environmental questions such as nuclear safety. Several neighboring countries of Austria have unsafe reactors.
Important in this case is the fact that Austria, in its 1995 accession process, brought up the discussion on future European support for nuclear energy.³ Although this was not directly successful, it has since then supported the establishment of a Coalition of Nuclear-Free Countries. As Austria has a national antinuclear policy, laid down in legislation, we hope the Austrians will use the presidency of the EU to highlight the sometimes hypocritical and at least unclear European policy on nuclear safety in the Central and Eastern European countries.
In the current European Union, a majority of the countries are already de facto nuclear-free or at least will become nuclear-free in the very near future, with the exception of France. None of the EU countries have an active program for the increase of nuclear-power capacity. The nuclear-free countries should identify the process of enlargement as an opportunity to again discuss the support the EU is giving to nuclear energy, not only in the CEE countries but as well within the current EU.

We hope that this special issue will help to increase the knowledge about the accession program and the European Union. In researching the Agenda 2000 issue, we found out several times that knowledge about the stucture and role of the European Union, the Parliament, Council and Commission is very inadequate, even among civil servants working in these institutions, or among members of the European Parliament, not to mention civil servants in the member-states.

* An ECU is the European Currency Unit (1 ECU = US$1.1), from 2002 there will be one currency in 11 EU countries: the Euro.

(June 19, 1998) It is generally recognized that in most areas, the standard of environmental protection in the accession countries is lower than that of the present member-states. Research carried out for the Regional Environmental Center (REC) in 1996 calculated that the environmental legislation of 10 Central and Eastern European countries complied with about half of that of the European Union 16.²²

The Commission outlines its position on accession and the environment in a document²³ which lists the 70 or so directives and 21 regulations which make up the body of EU legislation to which the new members will have to align their national legislation and administrative practices, too, the so-called environmental acquis. The legislation, European Union directives and regulations on nuclear issues that form the environmental acquis as of July 1, 1997, consists of 10 key directives and regulations. (For more on the accession criteria and the key directives on Nuclear Safety: "The History of the Accesion Program".) The Commission has stated that "while the adoption of the Union's environmental rules and standards is essential, none of the candidate countries can be expected to comply fully with the acquis in the near future, given their present environmental problems and the need for massive investments". ²⁴
The calculation of the investment-costs for compliance with the environmental acquis is extremely complex and one which will probably be revised several times. The European Parliament reports that the Commission has estimated that the total cost of the environmental acquis is 120 billion ECU.²⁵
It has recognized that the areas of environmental legislation which would take the longest time and be the most expensive to implement are those associated with public utilities, in particularly; water sector; energy sector; and waste-management sector. ²⁶

The Commission accepts that national governments are unlikely to be able to make the environmental investments necessary and so the PHARE program is to be reorientated to assist with preaccession. In total, for the years 2000-2006, the total EU pre-accession assistance is proposed to be 21 billion ECU. According to Commissioner Bjerregaard, approximately 7 billion ECU for the period 2000-2006 (or 1 billion a year) will be dedicated to environmental assistance.²⁷ Consequently, the PHARE program would only be able to contribute about 5% of what is estimated to be required (7 from the 120). It is expected that the combined budgets of the national governments and the Commission's PHARE program would be insufficient for all the required investments. The Commission therefore proposes that a two-fold approach be taken to tackle the predicted shortfall:
 

(June 19, 1998) The heads of state of the seven richest countries (the G-7), at their Munich Summit in 1992, decided to offer the CEE and NIS countries a multilateral program for financing nuclear safety improvements. In 1993, the Nuclear Safety Account (NSA) was set up with the already existing European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) acting as its secretariat. The purpose of the NSA is to ensure short-term operational and safety improvements of VVER 440/230 and RBMK-type reactors, which would lead to their closure according to agreed timetables. The NSA grants were not supposed to be used to extend the operating lifetime of these reactors.

Up till now, all the available ECU 257 million has been committed for projects in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia but none of the grants lent through the NSA has led to substantial safety improvements nor resulted in closure of a single high-risk reactor in CEE and CIS. Instead the NSA has contributed to upgrading and expanding the lifetime of those reactors. The operation of the NSA has proved to be highly non-transparent with insufficient implementation monitoring and control. Due to its narrow focus, the NSA has failed to ensure actual plant decommissioning. The conditionalities included in NSA agreements are insufficient in their scope and force, and a number of recipient governments failed to comply with the original agreements. All grants have failed to ensure clear closure dates for the reactors.
The NSA has insufficient resources to guarantee closure of the reactors and there is no clear mechanism for estimation of the needed cost of improvements. The grants have helped to extend the operating lifetime of those unsafe reactors. It is clear that a number of Western nuclear companies have benefited from NSA contract work, and have an interest in ensuring future markets for their services.
The European Union is one of the large contributors of the NSA. EU and its member states payed about 75% of the financial contributions (ECU 260 million) sofar.¹

Contributions to the Nuclear Safety Account as of 31 December 1997 (in million ECU)

(June 19, 1998) There are three treaties signed in the 1950s which are the beginning of the European Union: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC-1951), the European Economic Community (EEC-1958) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom-1957). All three treaties had the same six members: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, West Germany and Italy. This were the countries which received Marshall aid from the US after the Second World War.
In contrast to the ECSC, which expires in 2002, Euratom and the EEC were concluded for an unlimited period of time.

The background for European unity is the idea that only cooperation could put a definitive end to conflicts and wars in Europe. Since 1870 three wars of increasing destruction originated in Western Europe. France and Germany were the countries always involved. Therefore they had to be part of any European Union, be it economic, political or military. After World War II, the call for European cooperation became louder and the idea was supported by the US, especially after the beginning of the Cold War.
Many proposals for one form or another of European cooperation were launched. Not all of them made it or were successful.

• In 1948 the West European Union (WEU) was formed, a Defense Community initially between the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, joined in 1954 by Germany and Italy. The WEU never played an important role, although it tried to revitalize in times of crises in European cooperation.
• Also in 1948, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was founded by 16 European countries; the countries not belonging to the Soviet sphere of influence. The OEEC organized the implementation of the Marshall Plan. In 1960 it was transformed into the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and most Western countries and Japan became members. At present, 29 countries are OECD members, plus the European Commission. The OECD has its own organization to promote nuclear energy: the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. All these 29 countries, except New Zealand and Poland, are members of the OECD/NEA.
• In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed, with the US, Canada and nine West European countries, joined by Greece and Turkey in 1952 and by West Germany in 1955.
• In 1950, a European Defense Community was proposed.

On April 18, 1951, at the prompting of French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, the treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was signed. For the first time one of the central areas of policy, until then a matter exclusively for the nation state, passed into the hands of a supranational organization. This comprehensive economic integration of the coal and steel industries was intended to lead eventually to a political union.

On May 9, 1950, the Schumann plan was proposed, to coordinate the French-German production of steel and coal. This date is seen as the most important step in the process towards European unification.
In 1957 the so-called Treaties of Rome (Euratom and EEC) were signed. One of the aims of the EEC was a common market to allow the free movement of persons, services and capital. The Euratom Treaty was meant as a new impetus for European cooperation and was set up to promote nuclear energy.
In fact the idea for Euratom came from the side of the US, which liked the idea of a large, unified European nuclear market. The US launched its "Atoms for Peace" policy in 1953/4 to promote civil nuclear energy. The US was the main exporter of nuclear knowledge, nuclear installations and nuclear materials. The US idea for a European nuclear union was taken over and became part of the 1956 Spaak report (named after a Belgian politician) for the creation of a common European economic market and a separate nuclear common market: the Treaties of Rome.

As one of the main reasons for a separate treaty for nuclear energy, was the mainly French wish to develop nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, independent of the US and the UK.
In June 1956, the French Parliament made the possibility to develop nuclear weapons a precondition for its support for Euratom. By permitting the development of French nuclear weapons, the French fear was dispelled. In contrast to the IAEA, the Euratom Treaty allows civil as well as military use of nuclear energy. The Euratom safeguards have only to ascertain that "nuclear materials are not used for other than the intended use". So it depends on what the "intended use" would be. If the European nuclear weapon states - France and the UK - declare to Euratom safeguards inspectors that they want to use nuclear materials for the production of nuclear weapons, then the inspectors cannot object.

Together with the Treaties of Rome, an Assembly of the European Community was set up, responsible for the ECSC, Euratom and EEC. The European Parliament (consisting of 142 members) was established in March 1958, with Schuman as its first chairman. Although in the Treaty of Rome direct elections were already promised, it would take 20 years before those took place in June 1979. Before that, the members of the European Parliament were chosen by the national parliaments.
The Merger Treaty of April 8, 1965, which came into force on July 1, 1967, established a single executive for the ECSC, the EEC and Euratom. The term European Community (EC) describes the coming together of the institutions of these three organizations.
On January 1, 1973, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined the EC. The parliament grew to 198 members.
In January 1981 Greece joined the Community, and in 1986 Spain and Portugal followed. The parliament continued to grow; from 410 (since 1979) to 518 members.
In 1986 the Single European Act (SEA) was signed. Its aim was the completion of the common market no later than December 31, 1992. This changed the legislative procedure and brought the system of political cooperation in the field of foreign policy. Furthermore, the economic and financial cooperation was strenghtened. The SEA makes concrete progress towards European unification. The parliament gained some power:

• It can vote `yes' or `no' in discussions on new member-states, and
• It gets influence in the budgeting procedures.

On February 7, 1992, the Treaty on European Union was signed (known as the Maastricht Treaty). This treaty is seen as the most comprehensive reform of the Treaties of Rome. It also produces a clear timetable for further progress on the road to economic and monetary union (EMU), involving the introduction of a single currency no later 1999 and a European Central Bank. Due to difficulties among member-states, the treaty came into force in November 1993, almost a year later than planned.
In 1994, the EU and the seven-member European Free Trade Association (EFTA) formed the European Economic Area, a single market of 19 countries. The EU completed membership negotiations with EFTA members Austria, Finland, Norway (which did not ratify the accession treaty in 1995) and Sweden.
Austria, Finland and Sweden join the EU on January 1, 1995. EP grew to 626 members.
The year 1997 saw the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference and the signing of a new Treaty in Amsterdam on October 2, the completion of the final preparations for the third stage of economic and monetary union and the introduction of the euro, and the establishment of a new Union strategy for employment.
The December Luxembourg European Council took the decisions needed to launch the enlargement process. It stressed that the process must be allembracing, inclusive and responsive to events, and would proceed in stages at different rhythms depending on the degree of readiness of each of the applicant countries.

European Union's Governing Bodies

The European Commission (EC) proposes policies and is the only one allowed to take initiative leading to legislation (except in the fields of common foreign and security policies and justice and home affairs, where national governments are also allowed to take initiative). It is also responsible for administration, and ensures that the provisions of the treaties and the decisions of the institutions are properly implemented. The current Commission (1995-2000) consists of 20 commissioners, including the president, who are appointed by common agreement among the member-states and approved as a body by the European Parliament. Commissioners hold portfolios of responsibility and act in the interest of the Union, independently of national governments.

The European Council enacts legislation binding throughout EU territory and directs intergovernmental cooperation. The Council is composed of ministers representing the national governments of the 15 memberstates. Different ministers attend the Council meeting depending on the agenda. The decisionmaking procedure is difficult and discussed over and over. The 15 Member States have a total of 87 votes
in the Council, distributed according to the size of the countries. The votes are currently weighted as follows:
 

1. (June 19, 1998) COM(98) 134 final: Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on nuclear sector-related activities for the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States; Commission of the European Community p. 5, 31 March 1998.
3. L.J. Brinkhorst, Director General Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection, European Commission: Nuclear Safety: The Policy of the European Union, Maastricht 1993.
   
4. Options for the Austrian Position on the Revision of the EURATOM treaty for the EU Intergovernmental Conference; Global 2000 commissioned by Austrian Ministry for Environment, November.
   
5. COM(98) 134 final, 31 March 1998, p. 9.
   
6. Agenda 2000 and the Implications for Nuclear Safety; A. Froggatt and M. Weltin, March 1998.
   
7. Financial Times, 1 April 1992.
   
8. Izvestia, 1 November 1991, cited in: Russian Roulette; Friends of the Earth, 1992, p. 8.
   
9. The Nuclear Safety Account; EBRD, December 1994, p. 2.
   
10. IAEA News Features, September 1990.
    
11. IAEA press release, May 1998.
    
12. Nucleonics Week, 28 November 1991 p. 4-5.
    
13. Nucleonics Week, 5 March 1992, p. 1-2.
    
14. Nuclear Engineering International, November 1990, cited in: Dangerous Liaisons;Friends Of the Earth, January 1993, p. 6.
    
15. Nuclear Power and Safety in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; World Bank/IEA, March 1993.
    
16. COM(98) 134 final, 31 March 1998.
    
17. COM(98) 134 final, p. 5.
    
18. COM(98) 134 final, p. 18-22.
    
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(June 19, 1998) ".....The future role of nuclear power generation has been and will be questioned in principle..... I do not consider nuclear power as compatible with the concept of sustainable development. In my view reliance on nuclear power can therefore not be a viable option to combat the greenhouse effect. This position is shared by all the political parties represented in the Austrian parliament".^*

At the moment a majority of the members of the European Union are de facto nuclear-free or pretty soon nuclear-free. These are Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Greece, Austria, Italy and the Netherlands. Except for France, none of the member-states has an active pro-nuclear policy.
The Austrian government has been taking the lead in discussions within the European Union on issues as the ongoing financial and political support for nuclear energy. It has been supported by such countries as Ireland, Luxembourg and Denmark. The informal Coalition of Non-Nuclear Countries (NoNuC) was established in September last year. It aims to bring civil servants, NGOs, specialists and politicians together to discuss and bring forward the claim that the European Union should no longer support the further - development of nuclear energy.

A Coalition offers many advantages:

• The international, diplomatic weight and the lobbying chances of any single nuclear-free country will increase;
• The Coalition can be an instrument to attempt more successfully to reform or transform Euratom and the IAEA and to instead create for instance an International Solar Energy Agency (ISEA) or Eurosolar;
• The technical and political know-how and financial potential for nonnuclear energy options to offer to accession countries would not just add up but even multiply.

As Austria will be taking over the chair of the EU in the second half of 1998, the time is ripe for the Coalition to take shape and gain support.

For further information contact:
Anti Atom International
Volksgartenstr. 1
A-1010 Vienna, Austria
Tel: +43 1 522 9102
Fax: +43 1 522 9103
E-mail: aai@blackbox.at

* Austrian Federal Chancellor Viktor Klima, September 29, 1997, in his opening speech at the General Assembly of the IAEA.

(June 19, 1998) In the 1993 Copenhagen European Council, it was decided that Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEEC) could become members of the European Union, as soon as they were able to assume the obligations of membership.
All CEEC, including the Baltic states, declared their interest and at the Essen Council (Germany 1994), a strategy was outlined to prepare the countries for accession. The PHARE program, which was established in 1989, was transformed into one of the instruments for this preaccession strategy.

So-called Europe Agreements were developed with all the CEE countries.
In July 1997 the European Commission published the "Agenda 2000 - For a stronger and wider Union" (including detailed opinions on the membership applications of 10 CEE countries) which was the proposed approach for enlargement. In December 1997 in Luxembourg the European Council took the decisions needed to launch the enlargement process. It was decided (although the European Parliament wanted otherwise) that there would be two waves of accession and to start bilateral intergovernmental conferences only with the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia (and Cyprus).

The Accession Criteria
The criteria, as a precondition for accession to the European Union, are:
 

(June 19, 1998) The statute of the IAEA authorizes the IAEA to "establish or adopt (...) standards of safety for the protection of health and the minimization of danger to life and property". However, it provides no basis for the IAEA to impose legally binding standards to its member-states, except where the IAEA itself provides materials, facilities or services. The primary responsibility for regulating the uses of nuclear power has traditionally rested with national authorities.
The IAEA has developed voluntary Codes of Practice for nuclear power plants relating to, among others, safety in design, safety in siting and safety in operation. After the accident in Chernobyl, the codes were revised and a new set was approved by the IAEA in June 1988. They, however, remain voluntary and address only the safety of nuclear power plants and not other types of nuclear installations.

In 1991 the German government proposed to turn the voluntary codes into binding international safety requirements. After several negotiations it was agreed upon in 1994 that the Nuclear Safety Convention would be a single instrument with its text based on rather general undertakings. The convention entered into force in October 1996 and still applies only to land-based civil nuclear power plants.
The convention does not set out mandatory safety standards for reactors nor does it contain provisions for sanctions in the event of a party failing to meet its obligations. It aims to commit participating states to achieve and maintain a high level of nuclear safety by setting international "benchmarks" to which states should subscribe.
 

(June 19, 1998) The main conclusion should be that if it's up to the official policy of the European Union, it is very likely that Eastern Europe would remain a nuclear time-bomb, even after Agenda 2000.

But the conclusion should also be that the enlargement process of the EU offers opportunities to bring about the closure of the Eastern European nuclear reactors, or at least offers possibilities to strengthen the pressure for closure of those reactors.

A majority of 15 current EU members is de facto nuclear-free, or at least will become nuclear-free in the near future. With the exception of France, none of the EU countries has an active program for the increase of nuclear-power capacity. These countries should join power and discuss the end of EU support for nuclear energy (fission and fusion) not only in the CEE countries but also in the West.

Concretely this means:

Quick closure of High Risk Reactors; RBMK and VVER 440-230s: