Vienna gets tough with applicant states over nuclear closure plans

Date: 08/07/1999

By Simon Taylor

AUSTRIA is warning that it will block any move to invite Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria to begin talks on EU membership unless the trio come forward with firm plans to close their nuclear reactors.

Vienna insisted this week that all three must set out "comprehensive and convincing closure plans" for their reactors before starting accession negotiations.

The EU has identified the reactors at Lithuania's Ignalina plant, Slovakia's Bohunice and Bulgaria's Kozloduy as 'high risk' because they do not have containment vessels which would prevent radioactive material leaking out in the event of an accident.

"Presenting closure plans is the basis for Austria's decisions relating to accession in Helsinki," said Vienna in a hard-hitting statement.

Austria is also warning that it will veto the Czech Republic's entry into the EU unless its Temelin reactor is brought up to western safety standards. "If it cannot be proven that Temelin has reached the EU's technical level, Austria will draw the Czech Republic's attention to the fact that this level is a prerequisite for membership of the European Union," it stated.

Vienna has been stung into taking a hard line on the issue by a recent spate of decisions by neighbouring countries to extend the operating life of their reactors beyond agreed shutdown dates.

All the political parties in Austria oppose nuclear power and the country's location - its shares a border with four of the applicant countries - has encouraged it to take a tough stance on a number of enlargement issues.

Most Austrian politicians want to see controls on the movement of labour from applicant countries when they join the EU, to protect Austrian workers from competition for work once the borders are opened to foreigners.

Union governments are due to decide at the Helsinki summit in December which of the six 'second-wave' countries applying for EU membership are ready to begin formal negotiations.

There has been mounting speculation in recent weeks that they will ask all six to begin talks because of the need to send a positive political signal to Romania and Bulgaria, which are lagging behind in meeting the requirements for EU membership.

But Austria's firm stance on nuclear safety demonstrates that some of the applicants will have to make a number of painful commitments if they want to be given a seat at the negotiating table at the end of this year.

While the candidate countries accept the need to close their reactors within the next ten to 15 years, the Austrians want them to go much further by pledging to shut down the plants by 2004.

The 'anti-nuclear action plan' approved by the government earlier this week states that Austria will base its decision on whether the proposed closure dates are satisfactory on the EU's Agenda 2000 conclusions on nuclear issues.

To help the applicant countries draw up closure plans, the Union has set up special working groups on energy issues with Lithuania and Slovakia, both of which are likely to agree closure plans by the autumn in time for the Helsinki summit. But the deadlines demanded by Austria are much earlier than most of the countries concerned have so far been prepared to accept.

Vienna has, for example, suggested that the second unit at Lithuania's Ignalina plant should be closed by 2000 in line with Vilnius' original commitments under the Nuclear Safety Account agreement. But according to a new study drawn up by Lithuanian experts and international consultants, Unit I cannot be closed until 2005 and Unit II will have to remain open until at least 2010.

Vienna's warning shot across the Czech Republic's bows over its Temelin plant follows Prague's recent decision to complete work on the power plant. "The arguments for an immediate stop to work are stronger than those for completion," said the Austrian government.

In the absence of common nuclear safety standards in the EU, Vienna is calling for Temelin to comply with the rules applied to German power plants, which are among the strictest in Europe. It suggests that the plant should undergo a safety assessment as though it was applying for a licence to operate in Germany.

When these standards were applied to a reactor from the former East Germany, the plant was closed. Austria said this week that it would insist on the Czech plant passing the test before it would recommend letting the Republic join the EU.