Strasbourg, 16/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - At a press conference on the fringe of the plenary session in Strasbourg, Austrian Marialiese Flemming (OVP), Greece's Antonios Trakatellis (ND), Portugal's Jorge Moreira da Silva (PSD) and Italy's Giuseppe Nistico (Forza Italia) presented an initiative on nuclear safety. Ms. Flemming explained that for her it was a question of beginning to rid the EU of nuclear energy as it comprises many problems of safety and waste management in the immediate future, as well as for the future. She considered that the necessary scientific opinions and information needed gathering to allow for a reasonable political decision in the interest of future generations. The Christian-Democrats should be the first to come down in favour of abandoning nuclear energy when proof of safety problems have emerged, said Flemming, exclaiming: "the contrary would not be Christian". Mr. Trakatellis said that research needed developing into new less polluting sources of energy, and considered that the Environment Committee should commission studies of the STOA group. Mr. Nistico raised the problem of public health, and stressed that retaining nuclear activity especially raised the problem of managing the waste that risked being imposed on poor and fragile regions like his own, Calabria. For Moreira da Silva, who accused the nuclear lobby and certain politicians (he cited Commissioner Loyola de Palacio) of conducting misinformation campaigns, the Kyoto objectives could easily be met without use of nuclear energy. He also considered that the environmental costs of the energy sector should be internalised as is done for other sources of energy. The four MEPs considered the creation of an inter-group on nuclear safety.