Brussels, 12/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - In a press release, MEPs Caroline Luca (UK), Rebecca Harms (Germany) and Claude Thurmes (Luxemburg) of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament have strongly attacked the energy policy set out on July 11 by the British government, particularly proposals for a new generation of nuclear power stations. “Atomic Tony has decided to try and catapult UK energy policy back forty years. With all the uncertainties and risks associated with nuclear energy, it is astonishing that the UK government regards it a some kind of panacea for the current problems of energy security,” they say. They continue: twenty years after Chernobyl (and in the middle of the Iranian nuclear crisis), the government does not seem to have learned the lessons and is “content to ignore the malignant legacy of nuclear. The cracks, which are now commonplace in UK reactor cores, mirror those in the policy of how to deal with radioactive waste and how to prevent nuclear proliferation”. With limited facilities for treating nuclear waste, they say, European Countries are increasingly exporting their waste to third countries, like Russia, where safety standards are weak. This, they complain, is the path that Tony Blair is choosing to lead the UK down.
The MEPs also call on the European Commission to be vigilant in ensuring state aid, particularly aid awarded on the grounds of environmental protection, is not used for nuclear ends. Alternative energy sources must not be penalised, they insist.