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Nuclear Transparency Watch

Prevent and anticipate through transparency and participation

How can civil society influence nuclear waste decisions? Johan Swahn, ENEF May 23 2017

The Chair of our RWM working group Johan Swahn was a panelist in ENEF forum on 22-23 may in Prague.  The theme this year was: “60 years of Euratom”. We publish here his presentation. 

“First of all I would like to thank the European Commission for its efforts to make the ENEF more balanced when it comes to the points of view represented at the meeting. It is really vital that many voices can be heard. The challenges ahead are large as much of Europe is moving ahead and are ending the nuclear energy programmes that were started 60 years or so ago. Some European Member States have not yet come to the understanding that the apparent advantages of nuclear energy, such as low carbon dioxide emissions compared to coal, are countered by many disadvantages compared to strongly expanding renewable energy systems.

 I have worked with radioactive waste issues for many years, first at university and since 12 years for the Swedish environmental movement. In Sweden the systems set up for access to information, consultation and public information are very favourable for dialogue. It is not always easy to interest the general public or politicians in the complexity of radioactive waste issues, but the interactions between the industry (SKB), the regulator (SSM), the nuclear communities (Östhammar and Oskarshamn), the Swedish Council for Nuclear Waste (the Government’s scientific advisory board), academia, the environmental movement and other actors are well developed.

In order to allow strong engagement from an environmental movement that has many priorities and limited resources the Government has since 2004 even resourced them. MKG has for many years, like the nuclear communities, received funding from the Swedish nuclear waste fund. Coming from the Swedish experience, the transparency of European and national radioactive waste management governance is vital from an NGO perspective. In order to achieve successful and safe radioactive waste management it is vital to involve civil society in an open process all the way from early planning through decision-making to implementation. This also means giving environmental NGOs the resources to engage in a strong and sustainable manner.

 Yesterday, and today, as I listened to speeches, presentations, and sat around the tables in the World Café, two things struck me. The first was positive. I clearly felt that many, but not all, persons I interacted with were willing to listen and take in things that perhaps were new to them. Just as I have learnt that by listening and taking in new information I can come to develop a more informed opinion.

But there was also a feeling of travelling back in time. Maybe discussing the “60 Years of Euratom” contributed. I was not there in the 1950s, but it must have been similar. At that time nuclear energy was a new technical possibility, a peaceful atomic age was growing from the nuclear weapons developed during the Second World War. Everything was positive. Radioactive waste was not a problem. Accident risks were seen to have such a low probability that they could be ignored. Routine releases from operational reactors were not worse than the chemicals that were released from other industries. Nuclear power would be cheap and save the world.

 I had a feeling that was what I also heard many times yesterday. Nuclear has no problems. And it can save the world from climate change. All that has to be done to once again realise the vision of a great future for nuclear energy, is to inform the public, and people like me, so that we will understand. That nuclear energy is not so expensive. And that it does not cause so much release of carbon dioxide.

 But this is 2017. What if the general public now understands that nuclear energy may not the best way forward? What if they are willing to pay extra to make their energy future a modern one based on renewable energy?I know that some of you have researched and understand how the European and global energy systems are developing. But many of you have not. Knowing many people working in the renewable energy sector I have to say that my impression is that their knowledge of nuclear is much larger than many nuclear enthusiasts’ knowledge of alternatives.

 But I digress. This panel is about radioactive waste management. On the other hand there is a connection. One clear reason that the general public sees nuclear energy as more problematic than a renewable energy system is that nuclear energy produces waste. And not just any waste. Waste that is highly dangerous to begin with and needs to be isolated from mankind and environment for ten thousand, a hundred thousand or even a million years.

 In this panel we will among other things discuss the European Commission’s report on the Member States’ implementation of the Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Directive. It is a very good report. The Commission has taken a broad perspective on what is happening in Europe. Well worth reading, but also food for thought and for humble reflections. There are many interesting things to discuss after reading the report. Why are there so poor estimates for future waste production? Why are so many Member States still lacking regarding policies, concepts, plans and site selection, especially for high-level radioactive waste? Why do so many Member States have unverifiable systems for paying for waste management and decommissioning of reactors meaning that there is a significant risk that the tax-payer will have to pay for the nuclear industry’s waste? Why do so many member states not have appropriate systems for transparency of information and good public participation processes?

 For an environmental NGO this last issue is of extra importance. The Commission needs to request clarifications and express its opinion to Member States on the implementation of Article 10 on transparency in the Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Directive. The Commission also needs to encourage a broad discussion of transparency in radioactive waste management among the Member States at the European level, as well as continuing to support civil society participation in such discussions.

I end by stating something that may be evident, but unfortunately still needs to be said. After the ENEF Plenary there will be a report written that will try to summarise some conclusions from the meeting. This will be done by the Steering Committee led by the Commission. It is important that all views that have been presented at the plenary are taken into due account by all parties when summarising these two days and also when looking forward and planning the next ENEF plenary. In this meeting there are once again many environmental NGO’s ready to interact and learn. They are also well worth listening to. The goal of the ENEF is dialogue. Let us respectfully continue it.”

You can find the agenda of the 2017 ENEF meeting here.

You can watch again the streaming of the ENEF: here.

 

 

The struggle of Rosatom to understand what transparency is

NTW member, journalist and activist Andrey Ozharkovsky is refused information

Blog from Jan Haverkamp, 19 May 2017

When he was preparing for his speech for a group of local citizens and experts in the town of Mersin in South-East Turkey about how the nearby situated Akkuyu nuclear energy project is seen from a Russian perspective, member of the Russian Socio-Ecological Union – one of the oldest environmental organisations in Russia – and journalist Andrey Ozharkovsky tried to get much as possible information also directly from the side of the foreseen builder, owner and operator of the power plant, Rosatom. Without success he approached Rosatom’s Turkish daughter for the project JSC Akkuyu Nuklear for the latest version of the EIA documentation. Also requests to Rosatom itself for many documents went without response. On the basis of his own inside knowledge and whatever there is available publicly, he could, however, still sketch an insightful picture. He has studied the dynamics around the Hanhikivi project that Rosatom is pushing in Finland, the Astravetz project in Belarus. He has followed for decades the work of Rosatom in countries like Bulgaria and Hungary. He could get access to a lot of documentation published in the Russian, Turkish and international media about Akkuyu as well.

 He started his introduction with: “”I am an anti-nuclear activist in my country. I believe in the need to maintain good-neighbourly relations between our two countries, but nuclear issues can create problems in our relations.” He ended his presentation:  “I think that the Akkuyu nuclear power plant construction project is an example of mutual non-beneficial cooperation, as a result of which a threat to the good-neighbourly relations between Russia and Turkey can be created.”

Rosatom listened in. After his presentation in Mersin, it finally reacted with a 2 page densely written diatribe (see illustration): “You sent a request for the Akkuyu nuclear power plant. Before returning to this issue, we want to report the following. Turkish media Jumhuriyet published an article on May 2, 2017 on the issue of nuclear waste, which will be produced during operation of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant. The author of the material, Abidin Yagmur, quotes and refers to your speech at the panel discussion organized in the Mersin House of Physicians, where you came by the invitation of the Antinuclear Platform. To our great regret, we are forced to pay attention to your erroneous statements, which are baseless and contain inaccurate information on this issue.” It then continues to accuse Ozharkovsky of not having asked Rosatom experts for up to date information, of making false public statements and misleading the public.

 Although Russian legislation is quite clear that it bans the import of nuclear waste, and only allows nuclear waste to be transported to the country for reprocessing, whereby resulting waste has to be returned to the country of origin, Turkish citizens believe that there is a bilateral agreement in place that will allow full transfer of nuclear waste from Akkuyu to Russia. Ozharkovsky had pointed out that this issue is not at all settled and feared that Turkey might be misled into believing that transfer for reprocessing would be a solution to the high-level waste problem. An impression that also the public in Bulgaria and Hungary sometimes still has, although these countries are now struggling with what to do with returning wastes. Rosatom quotes Ozharkovsky’s speech that “the nuclear waste that will be generated during the operation of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant could cause a crisis in relations between Turkey and Russia.”

 It then accuse him of “insulting remarks to the professionals of the Russian nuclear industry, which celebrated its 70th anniversary last year. We consider such statements unethical and unacceptable. Rosatom State Corporation, which always stands for the development of an open dialogue based on reliable and relevant information, has the right to draw a conclusion about your unwillingness to constructive dialogue and interest in loud statements that do not correspond to reality.” After an indeed factually right description of the reprocessing agreements Rosatom has in place with different countries and a description of the international and national basis for the cooperation between Turkey and Russia, it concludes: “Thus, the statement about the absence of a long-term waste management plan for the Akkuyu nuclear power plant is erroneous and has no basis.”

 Well, that is a wrong conclusion, because Ozharkovsky had made clear that also Russia has no final disposal for radioactive waste, nor is there one for the foreseeable future in Turkey. And it is that lack of clarity and confusion of short term management with final solution that could, according to Ozharkovksy, lead to future tension between the countries.

Rosatom then provides one paragraph of general PR-talk about the containment of Akkuyu – one of the issues about which Ozharkovsky had requested substantial information.And then it states: “Sorry, we are not ready to discuss with you on this subject, despite your unconditional knowledge in the design of special objects and the possibility of computer modeling.”

 That attitude towards transparency does not bode well for cooperation between Rosatom and citizens in European countries where it wants to be active, including Turkey. A justification discussion including the environmental, social and economic risks of new nuclear projects cannot be based on PR talk and has to include a well informed public. That needs openness to requests for information from the public, and most certainly from informed NGOs and their members. It needs openness to discuss those issues without intimidation. And above all, it needs honesty about the facts and uncertainties and true, not only formal respect for these citizens.

 ILLUSTRATION: download Rosatom letter translated in english here.

See the scan of the russian version here.
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European Commission reports on national radioactive waste plans

On 15 May, the European Commission published its first implementation report under the radioactive waste Directive 2011/70/EURATOM on the national radioactive waste reports and programmes.

The report and its two staff working documents can be found here. They  can also be downloaded using the links at the end of this article.

 Nuclear Transparency Watch (NTW) vice-chair Jan Haverkamp comments:

 “The report of the European Commission on the situation of radioactive waste in the EU member states makes for humbling reading. The often-made statement that we are creating a nuclear legacy for which we are not sufficiently prepared can hardly get a better illustration.

 The Commission concludes that there is still inadequate overview of current existing amounts of radioactive waste in Europe, and an estimate of future radioactive waste is fully missing because most member states have not taken this into account for upcoming decommissioning of old nuclear reactors or did not (yet) calculate this for plans for new nuclear investments. Given the fact that storage and disposal of low- and intermediate waste demands large efforts, and that a disposal solution for high level waste is still not operating anywhere in the world, this sheds doubts on the responsibility that the nuclear industry and authorities are taking in their nuclear plans.

 There needs to be full transparency about the production and management of this type of dangerous wastes. The problems Europe is facing with it, insufficient funding everywhere; insufficient safety precautions in some places; no existing solution in place anywhere, and an overoptimistic depiction of attempts in Finland, Sweden and France – should be more openly and honestly reflected in the justification of nuclear decisions. The public should be informed honestly and transparently about uncertainties and problems and given a chance to submit its concerns, viewpoints and questions before any decision is taken about the production of new radioactive waste, for instance in new nuclear projects and life-time extensions of existing ones, and in further projects for management of radioactive wastes. Only in this way we can reduce the chance that that future generations will fall victim to this generation’s nuclear legacy.

 Issues of large concern include the lack of sufficient funds for radioactive waste management, the lack of reflection on there not being any final disposal technologies implemented for high-level waste, the tendency of half of the Member States to want to find final solutions outside of their own borders.

 We furthermore notice that the Commission shies away from its obligation as guardian of the Treaties to point out to the Member States that they have an obligation under the Aarhus Convention to take the information in this report and procedures including public participation into account not only in future reporting (as the Commission requires now), but above all in concrete decisions, among others concerning new nuclear projects and life-time extension of existing programmes. Reports do not reduce nuclear risks – implementation of the findings does.”

 The national reports on which the Commission based its conclusions can be found here.

 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION on progress of implementation of Council Directive 2011/70/EURATOM and an inventory of radioactive waste and spent fuel present in the Community’s territory and the future prospects, May 15, 2017

 SWD(2017) 161 final: COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Inventory of radioactive waste and spent fuel present in the Community’s territory and the future prospects, May 15, 2017

 SWD(2017) 159 final: COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Progress of implementation of Council Directive 2011/70/EURATOM, May 15, 2017

 

MEPS, CEE Bankwatch and NTW call for strong application of Aarhus and Espoo conventions on life-time extension projects

CEE Bankwatch Network and Nuclear Transparency Watch with Members of Parliament asked the European Commission, as an opinion-making party of relevant international conventions, to provide leadership and express its clear support for the findings of relevant committees during the upcoming Meetings of Parties of Espoo Convention in June and of the Aarhus Convention in September, in favour of a coherent application of the Espoo and Aarhus Conventions to nuclear lifetime extensions.

Attached please find a joint letter of 18 members of the European Parliament, Nuclear Transparency Watch and the CEE Bankwatch Network, which is calling for a firm position leading to more nuclear transparency, public engagement and safety across Europe.

Downolad the joint letter.

Presentation of NTW activities at the joint ICTP-IAEA Workshop

Nadja Zeleznik presented NTW at the joint ICTP-IAEA Workshop on Environmental Mapping: Mobilising Trust in Measurements and Engaging Scientific Citizenry which took place three weeks in March 2017 at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy.

The workshop was intended as a hands-on activity that provides an opportunity for participants to construct, test and use their own environmental radiation sensor. Participants develop skills in the use of open-source hardware and software tools and develop geographical information system (GIS) maps. Throughout the workshop participants discussed with decision makers, leading technology thinkers, scientists and journalists on issues surrounding the collection and use of quantitative and qualitative information in the public domain and the powerful role an active informed citizen can have in society.

The presentation of NTW made by Nadja Zeleznik provides information on the reasons why a whatchdog organisation was formed, the main activities of NTW and the principles we adopted for our work. The interest from participants and responses show that there is still lack of awareness on what transparency in nuclear projects means, what kind of international and national legal provisions exist and how they are implemented in practice. Participants, coming from 26 countries around the world, agreed that there should be more communication, public participation and justice in environmental issues as mentioned in the Aarhus convention, since open society needs to be aware, engaged and protected.

How much will it really cost to decommission the ageing French nuclear fleet ?

Dr Paul Dorfman
NTW Member
Honorary Senior Research Associate, Energy Institute, UCL
Founder, ncg

Faisabilité Technique et Financière du Démantèlement des Infrastructures Nucléaires
The issue of decommissioning costs is a key challenge in the nucear sector. Perhaps surprisingly, a recently published French Governmental report on Faisabilité technique et financière du démantèlement des infrastructures nucléaires, from Le Commission du Développement Durable et de l’Aménagement du Territoire, Assemblée Nationale, has just blown a significant hole in the French decommissioning strategy.
http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/documents/notice/14/rap-info/i4428/%28index%29/depots

In late January this year, on the last day of the Commissions work, the Committee took evidence from the EDF head of decommissioning and me. Given the Commission had been working on this for months, and had listened to mounds of complex data, I decided to cut to the chase and make as clear an argument as I could. What follows is that evidence.

How much has France, Germany and UK set aside for decommissioning ?
Whereas Germany has set aside €38 billion to decommission 17 nuclear reactors, and the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) estimates that clean-up of UK’s 17 nuclear sites will cost between €109 – €250 billion over the next 120 years – France has set aside only €23 billion for the decommissioning of its 58 reactors. To put this in context, according to the European Commission, France estimates it will cost €300 million per gigawatt (GW) of generating capacity to decommission a nuclear reactor – far below Germany’s assumption at €1.4 billion per GW and the UK of €2.7 billion per GW.

How can EDF decommission at such low cost?
EDF maintain that because of standardisation of some of the reactors and because there are multiple reactors located on single sites, they can decommissioning at a low cost. Does this claim stack up ? Well, probably not. Reactors are complex pieces of kit, and each has a differing operational and safety history. In other words, nuclear reactor decommissioning is essentially a
‘bespoke’ process.

Why has EDF underestimated the costs of decommissioning 
and waste storage ?
Even EDFs €23 billion limited provision for decommissioning and waste storage is a large sum of money for a company that has huge borrowings and enormous debt, which is currently running at €37 billion, Standard and Poor and Moodys (the two biggest international credit rating agencies) have already downgraded EDFs credit-worthiness over the corporations potentially ill-advised decision to go ahead with attempting to construct two more of the failing Areva reactor design (the EPR) at Hinkley Point, UK. And any significant change in the cost of decommissioning would have an immediate and disastrous impact on EDFs credit rating – something that the debt-ridden corporation can simply not afford.

Spent nuclear fuel build-up
Then there’s EDF’s existential problems at France’s high-level waste storage and reprocessing facility at La Hague, where spent nuclear fuel stores are reaching current cooling capacity limits. This means La Hague may now have to turn away spent fuel shipments from Frances reactor fleet. In any case, since ASN have identified safety problems with some spent fuel transport flasks, spent fuel transport to La Hague has substantially slowed. All this means the build-up of spent fuel at nuclear sites across France, with the associated problem of cooling the spent fuel at nuclear sites during dry summer periods, with all that means for further escalation of rad-waste management costs.

French National Assembly Commission Findings
Happily, and perhaps unexpectedly, when the Commission publishes it’s final key findings, they come down on the side of those who voiced concerns about EDFs provisioning for reactor decommissioning and waste management does not include “obvious under-provisioning” regarding “certain heavy expenses”, such as taxes and insurance, remediation of contaminated soil, the reprocessing of used fuel and the social impact of decommissioning. The Commission found that the clean-up of French reactors will take longer, be more challenging and cost much more than EDF anticipates.

The Commission reports that EDF showed “excessive optimism” in the decommissioning of its nuclear power plants. “Other countries have embarked on the dismantling of their power plants, and the feedback we have generally contradicts EDF’s optimism about both the financial and technical aspects of decommissioning… “The cost of decommissioning is likely to be greater than the provisions”, the technical feasibility is “not fully assured” and the dismantling work will take “presumably more time than expected”.

Critically, the Commissions report says that EDF arrived at its cost estimate by extrapolating to all sites the estimated costs for decommissioning a generic plant comprising four 900 MWe reactors, such as Dampierre, noting that: “The initial assumption according to which the dismantling of the whole fleet will be homogeneous is questioned by some specialists who argue that each reactor has a particular history with different incidents that have occurred during its history”.

So what now?
Soon EDF will have to start the biggest, most complex and costliest nuclear decommissioning and radioactive waste management programme on earth. It seems very likely that (for various reasons not unassociated with it’s current bank balance) EDF may have seriously underestimated the real challenges and costs, with serious consequences for its already unhealthy balance sheet. This will have profound consequences for the French State, who underwrite EDF.

Taken up in the Press:

China Dialogue:

The Espoo Convention Implementation Committee asks the UK to suspend work on the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station because of the government’s failure to consult with European countries.

Last year, the Espoo Convention Implementation Committee concluded that the UK had failed to meet its obligations under the Espoo Convention to discuss the possible impact of an accident at Hinkley on neighboring countries.
See the report of the Implementation Committee on its thirty-eighth session, page 21: http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/documents/2016/EIA/IC/ece.mp.eia.ic.2016.2.advance_unedited_8Apr2016.pdf

The Implementation Committee has now gone a step further and said the UK should consider refraining from further works on the site of the new reactors until an transboundary environmental impact assessment as been conducted. The UK followed the Committee’s suggestion to send out a notification of the project to potentially impacted countries. It even went the extra mile and notified all parties to the Espoo Convention. At date, at least the Netherlands, Norway and Germany have reacted positively on the invitation to participate in a transboundary environmental impact assessment.
See the report of the Implementation Committee on its thirty–fifth session, page 13: https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/eia/documents/ImplementationCommittee/2017/IC_38/ece.mp.eia.ic.2017.2_IC38report_13.03.2017_as_adopted_for_web.pdf

 More information:

–       Bloomerg, “UN Asks U.K. to Pause Hinkley Nuclear Plant Work for Assessment”, 18 March 2017: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-18/un-asks-u-k-to-pause-hinkley-nuclear-plant-work-for-assessment

–       The Guardian, ” UN asks UK to suspend work on Hinkley Point”, 20 March 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/20/un-asks-uk-suspend-work–hinkley-point-c

–       Press release from StopHinkley “A United Nations body has asked the UK to suspend Hinkley Point C pending an environmental assessment ” from StopHinkley” : http://stophinkley.org/PressReleases/pr170320.pdf

–       A report for the Green MSPs by Pete Roche “Plant Life-Time Extensions for Scotland’s Ageing Reactors the Lack of Public Participation in the Decision-Making Process”: https://greens.scot/sites/default/files/Nuclear%20lifetime%20extensions%20-%20Pete%20Roche.pdf

Application of the Aarhus Convention in France – Contribution of ANCCLI

France is preparing to update its triennial report on the implementation of the Aarhus Convention. This Convention deals with access to information, participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters. The application of the Convention notably concerns the nuclear sector.

Following the request of the Ministry of the Environment, Energy and the Sea, ANCCLI wishes to share its experience and proposals with the application of the Aarhus Convention to the nuclear sector.

Here are some of the recommendations of ANCCLI:

ANCCLI recalls that free access to information is the norm and that secrecy, whether it is commercial, industrial or military, must be an exception. The appropriateness of the use of secrecy must be verifiable by an independent body. The ANCCLI considers that the difficulties encountered in determining what information can not be made public, in the absence of a clear process for determining whether information is protected by a form of confidentiality, should be mentioned in the obstacles encountered in the Implementation of Article 4 of the Aarhus Convention.
 
ANCCLI considers that work remains to be done in the provision of information in digital format. Files submitted for consultation or public inquiry are not always available on the Internet, or in a format that does not allow for thorough work. Access to files via the Internet allows the public to study the documents without having constraint of the opening time of the customer care desk.
 
ANCCLI considers that the provisions concerning public participation are only partially implemented in France. Local Information Commissions often lack time to work thoroughly on subjects on which they are consulted. In addition, public participation processes often arrive rather late, when the implementation of a project or important technical options have already been decided. For example, EDF is currently studying the construction of new storage capacities upon request of the ASN. The operator seems to consider only the option of one or more underwater and centralized storage facilities. In fact, other options exist. It appears that public participation will only occur at the time of the application for authorization to set up the facility or facilities, when the main technical options are already predetermined. Implementation of the Aarhus Convention would involve engaging a public participation process now, helping to discuss the various options for fuel storage.
 
See all recommendations of ANCCLI: Download

CONFERENCE “Public participation in the nuclear sector” – The Espoo and Aarhus conventions

30 March 2017 – European Parliament Brussels

The Espoo convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary context lays down the obligation to assess the environmental impact of activities in the nuclear sector at an early stage of decision making. It also lays down the general obligation for parties to notify and consult each other on all major projects under consideration that are likely to have a significant adverse environmental impact across national borders.

The Aarhus Convention links human rights and environmental issues. The preamble of the Aarhus Convention states that: “In the field of environment, improved access to information and public participation in decision-making enhance the quality and the implementation of decisions…”.

In the context of the upcoming Meeting of Parties to the Espoo Convention in June 2017, the roundtable will analyze the legal provision of the two conventions and their implementation to cases of lifetime extension of nuclear units. The presentations and discussions on the case studies aim to map the progress since the last Meeting of Parties to the Espoo Convention and draw recommendations from civil society and MEPs prior to the Meeting of Parties in June this year.

 AGENDA

Introduction and state of play
Rebecca Harms, Green MEP

First Panel – Moderated by Rebecca Harms

Overview of Espoo and Aarhus conventions obligations in the nuclear sector
Dr. Doerte Fouquet, Becker Büttner Held
Her presentation:

The Espoo and Aarhus conventions and the EU and Euratom Treaties
Georges Kremlis, DG Envrionemnt, European Commission
His presentation:

 

Importance of public participation in decisions making in the nuclear domain
Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace International/Nuclear Transparency Watch
His presentation :

Second Panel – Moderated by Bendek Javor

The lifetime extensions of nuclear units in Ukraine
Iryna Holovko, CEE Bankwatch Network, Ukraine
Her presentation :

The lifetime extensions of nuclear units in Belgium
Eloi Glorieux, Greenpeace Belgium
His presentation:

The lifetime extensions of nuclear units in Bulgaria
Petar Kardjilov, Green Party, Bulgaria
His presentation

Concluding remarks
Benedek Javor, Green MEP

 

UA-event-low-res

NTW response on European Commission refusal to give access to information on grounds PAKSII non-tendering

On 8 December 2016, Christiana Mauro and NTW made a request access to the documents connected to the legal assessment of infringement proceeding 2015/4231 initiated by the Commission against Hungary with regard to the public procurement process for the Paks Nuclear Power Plant refurbishment and new reactor construction. In addition, they also request the Commission to provide any additional documentation related to the investigation that may be available under Regulation 1049/2001, including the legal analyses conducted by the Commission services, internal notes and documents, correspondence and reports.

On 19 January 2017, NTW and Christiana Mauro received a refusal informing that their application cannot be granted, as disclosure is prevented by exception to the right of access laid down in Article 4 of this Regulation.

On 22 February 2017, following this request for access to documents of 8 December 2016, NTW and Christiana Mauro submitted a confirmatory application in accordance with Article 7(2)[1] and 7(4)[2] of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents. They ask to reconsider the position taken as regards the request for the legal basis of the conclusion of infringement procedure NIF 2015/4231, to which access has been refused.

Find this access to information on AskTheEU.org

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