On Thursday 28 January, the members of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) adopted a draft resolution calling on the European Commission to assess and propose measures to suspend the European Union’s exchanges of electricity with Belarus by a large majority (66 votes for and 2 against, with 7 abstentions).
The aim is to ensure that electricity produced by the Ostrovets nuclear power station does not enter the EU market.
In fact, despite the common agreement between the Baltic countries to cease exchanges of electricity with Minsk, MEPs noted that electricity produced by Belarus continues to enter the EU market via the Russian grid.
The MEPs are concerned about the lack of transparency and official information regarding “recurrent emergency shutdowns of the reactor and equipment failure during the commissioning stage of the plant”, and urge the Belarusian authorities to fully cooperate with the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG), which is responsible for carrying out a peer review of the power station.
The document also points out that the Ostrovets power plant is a Belarusian and Russian “geopolitical project”, the construction and future operation of which “is a source of possible threat” to the EU with regard to safety, health and protection of the environment.
During a recent debate in the ITRE Committee, the Commission gave an assurance that it was assessing the possibility of introducing measures to prevent commercial imports of electricity from nuclear power stations in non-Member States that do not comply with the safety levels recognised by the EU, as requested by the European Council in December (see EUROPE 12636/7).
The full Parliament is expected to vote on the draft resolution at the February plenary session.
The draft resolution can be found at: https://bit.ly/2YkpLja (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)