Brussels, 22/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - The EP budgetary control committee is critical that more than ten years after European funding began for dismantling eight nuclear reactors in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia, some of these plants have still not been definitively decommissioned.
A draft resolution by the budgetary control committee was adopted on Tuesday 22 January. This is based on a report by Marian-Jean Marinescu (EPP, Romania) and relates to report 16/2011 from the Court of Auditors analysing the implementation of EU financial assistance to Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia in operations to decommission their reactors. The budgetary control committee's report also identifies the irregularities highlighted by the Court of Auditors. The draft text criticises overspending, delays, lack of coordination and monitoring, the total lack of accountability, allocation of excessive funds to unrelated energy projects and priorities based on poor information. The budgetary control committee therefore advocates that decommissioning plans implemented in these countries include detailed financial accounts and explanations as to how the closing down of the nuclear plants will be funded.
The budgetary control committee said that it was very concerned by the lack of sufficient funds for completing the decommissioning of the reactors in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia. The Court of Auditors has calculated the amount required for this exercise as €2.5 billion. MEPs have warned that if this amount is exceeded, member states should set aside sufficient funding for decommissioning a third of the EU's reactors that are coming to the end of their life cycles in 2025. (EH/transl.fl)