Brussels, 22/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - Having been criticised for his reaction, which was felt to be overly alarmist, to the Japanese nuclear crisis of last week, Günther Oettinger said after the Energy Council on 21 March that he had not meant to cause any panic but stated that he refused to play down the situation. “The events of last week must not be minimised or exaggerated. We have to look at what happened. When such a massive earthquake hits a country, when control of six nuclear power station reactors is lost, I am at a loss to see why the word disaster cannot be used”, he said. At the height of the crisis, on 15 March, he described the situation in Japan as apocalyptic.
Oettinger also drew headlines last week when he suggested that some reactors in operation in the EU might fail the stress tests against various types of threat. For this, he was accused of destabilising financial markets and was reprimanded by France. “There is absolutely no need to feed irrational fears”, French Energy Minister Eric Besson said again on Monday, stating that he was not alone among ministers in being very unhappy at Oetinger's comments. “Both in what he said and the way he said it, his comments shocked France and Europe. At a time when the Japanese were still working with a determination that could not fail to win respect, to speak of apocalypse was perhaps inopportune. As for the danger posed by some European power stations, it is the substance of what is said that is disturbing. I am not saying that he is definitely wrong but, at that point, he should have said very quickly which are the dangerous power stations. On what criteria did he base his statements, I wondered. Or does he have information that we don't?” Besson said after the Council meeting. (E.H./transl.rt)