“Convention favours nuclear”, claims energy industry

Date: 27/03/03

By Karen Carstens

RENEWABLE energy producers fear that the Convention on the future of Europe is unjustly favouring the nuclear industry by toying with the idea of exempting it from EU competition rules.

In a letter addressed to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president who chairs the forum, the European Renewable Energy Federation (EREF) denounced the granting of such a privilege to one energy sector.

"As long as there is a continuation of the unfair privileges granted to the nuclear and coal industries, we will warn all member states and parliaments, and join with the relevant NGOs from the environmental sector, to demonstrate the imbalance of attention within the [European] Commission and the Convention to continue to bestow special privileges on these industries," wrote EREF President Joan Fages.

"Our position has been to demand justice, equal treatment and a level playing field."

Dörte Fouquet, a lawyer representing EREF in Brussels, said the organisation suspects that Transport and Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has exerted a strong pro-nuclear influence on the Convention's secretariat, which has been discussing the issue in recent weeks.

"This is very alarming for us," she said, adding, "there is one very strong voice [de Palacio] in favour of this in the Commission, but the Commission itself appears to be divided on the matter."

Renewable energy producers fear that the Convention on the Future of Europe is unjustly favouring the nuclear industry by toying with the idea of exempting it from EU competition rules.