June 1, 1998 * Volume 1, Number 3
N U C L E A R, O T H E R E N E R G Y
Slovakia tells EU plant is safe
Slovakia's nuclear power agency said on June 2 that it had told the European Commission the controversial Mochovce nuclear power station was safe but the plant would not begin operation without a final review, Reuters reported. The plant has been strongly opposed by the anti-nuclear government of neighbouring Austria, which has requested EU intervention, according to Reuters and other reports. Located 120 km (75 miles) from the Austrian border, the Mochovce power station was built to a Russian design but has been upgraded according to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recommendations, Reuters said. The first reactor is due to begin operating in June or July, according to reports. Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima has called on Slovakia to postpone the launch of the plant, but his Slovak counterpart, Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, refused to bow to the pressure, Reuters said. In a nongovernment protest, on May 22, 25 activists belonging to Global 2000, an Austrian environmental group, occupied Slovakia's embassy in Vienna for about an hour before police started to drag them away, according to reports.
Contact: Slovak Environment Minister Jozef Zlocha, tel: (421-7) 516-2306, fax: (421-7) 515-2438; or Slovak Greenpeace office; or Dr. Martin Bartenstein, Austrian environment minister, tel: (43-1) 313-040.
Austria also fights Czech plant
In another quarrel with a neighbour's nuclear plant, the lower house of the Austrian parliament has called on the Czech government to prevent the launching of the controversial nuclear power plant at Temelin, close to Austria's border, Radio Prague reported on May 28. Opposition Green Party MP Gabriela Moser said that Temelin posed a safety risk to Austria, comparable to those of Slovakia's Mochovce plant, and that the Parliament had committed the Austrian government to starting negotiations with Prague on the topic, according to the report.
Contact: Rut Bizkova, Czech Environment Ministry, tel: (420-2) 6712-2040; or MP Moser; or Dr. Martin Bartenstein, Austrian environment minister, tel: (43-1) 313-040.
Hungary may join Mochovce opposition . . .
Zoltan Illes, the vice president of the Young Democrats Hungarian Civic Party (FIDESZ-MPP), said on 26 May that the newly elected Hungarian government will join Austria in opposing the opening of Slovakia's controversial Mochovce nuclear power plant, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Reuters. Illes, a leading candidate to become environment minister in the new government, said FIDESZ-MPP believes the plant, located just 60 kilometers from Budapest, is unsafe, according to the reports.
Contact: FIDESZ, tel: (36-6) 40 40-1998); or Slovak Environment Minister Jozef Zlocha, tel: (421-7) 516-2306.
. . . and fight Slovak dam too
The most likely candidate for environment minister in Hungary's new government also suggested that he would not seek to cooperate with Slovakia in the construction of a joint hydroelectric dam project, according to reports. In 1989, Hungary tried to back out of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros project on the Danube River, but the International Court in Hague ruled in September that the 1977 treaty committing both nations to work on the project was still valid. "The Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party considers the verdict passed by the International Court of Justice on the Danube water barrage last autumn as guiding, and does not want to construct a dam," Fidesz vice president Zoltan Illes said in the June 26 edition of Hungary's daily Nepszabadsag, according to a report by Duncan Shiels of Reuters.
Contact: FIDESZ, tel: (36-6-40-40-1998); or Slovak Environment Minister Jozef Zlocha, tel: (421-7) 516-2306.
Bulgaria eyes nuclear dump
Bulgaria, dependent on its Kozloduy nuclear power plant for 46 percent of its electricity, should build a high radioactive waste storage by 2020, the chairman of the Bulgarian Atomic Committee said May 25, according to Reuters. Georgi Kaschiev told reporters that a new storage facility, worth more than $100 million, could service not only Bulgaria but the whole region, which is badly in need of new waste-storage facilities, Reuters said. In the past, the Soviet Union reprocessed and disposed of spent fuel from Kozloduy, without charge, under a bilateral agreement which expired in 1990, according to the report. Moscow adopted a law on environmental protection in 1992 which banned the disposal of nuclear waste from foreign countries on its territory, and since then, the spent fuel has since been left unprocessed in a temporary storage at the Kozloduy plant in northwest Bulgaria on the border with Romania, the report said.
Contact: Bulgarian Atomic Energy committee, tel: (359-2) 720-217, fax (359-2) 702 143.
E U A C C E S S I O N A N D E U R O P E
EU warns accession nations
EU Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard on May 20 urged the nations of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to avoid pollution that could make it harder for them to join the European Union and be costly to remedy, according to published reports. Bjerregaard spoke after the European Commission published a paper urging the 10 CEE nations seeking EU membership to produce detailed plans showing how and when they intended to bring their air, water and waste disposal standards up to the level of their western neighbours, the reports said. The EU's executive arm estimates it will cost the newcomers ECU 100-120 billion (USD 132 billion) to comply with EU environmental laws, Reuters said. In their paper, the Commission confirmed that none of the 10 Central and Eastern European applicants is expected to fully comply with EU environmental laws by the time of accession, according to Environment Daily News Service. The Commission did outline a structured approach for raising standards to EU levels over the long term, the news service said.
Contact: European Commission, tel: (32-2) 295-1111.
Report on Europe's environment
The European Environment Agency in Copenhagen saw some ecological progress, but also a need for much improvement, in its new report on the state of the environment in Europe, which was submitted June 2, according to a press release. The so-called "Dobris+3" report comes three years after the EEA's first assessment of the pan-European environment, requested by the first pan-European conference of environment ministers, held in 1991 at Dobris Castle in the then Czechoslovakia, according to the Environment Daily News Service. The present report is intended to be key input to the fourth pan-European conference of environment ministers, to be held in Aarhus, Denmark, later this month, sources said. The report, covering 44 countries gave high marks to industry for working toward improvement, but said other sectors, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe are lagging behind, sources said.
Contact: European Environment Agency, tel: (45-33) 367-100.
A R O U N D T H E R E G I O N
Town cuts off water after spill
Drinking water supplies were cut off May 27 in the Hungarian town of Szaszhalombata, 30 kilometers south of Budapest, after a French owned company leaked 120 liters of dangerous nerve poison into the Danube River, according to the NewsLife news service and other sources. The poison, an insecticide called "Klinix," apparently entered the Danube after workers at the chemical plant Budatetni-Chinoin washed it into the sewage system, NewsLife said. Officials in Szashalombata almost immediately closed the main drinking water supplies to the town after tons of dead fish were discovered nearby. "There is no other alternative but to wait for the poison to break down," said Mihaly Vezer, the mayor of Szaszhalombata, a refinery town built up after World War II. "The allegedly illegal discharge of pesticides to the Danube was committed by well-known pharmaceutical company Chinoin (it supplied and still supplies much of Eastern Europe with medicine), which has recently been acquired by Sanofi," Prof. Diana Urge-Vorsatz, Dept. of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University, Budapest, wrote on June 2, in an e-mail response to a query.
Contact: Diana Urge-Vorsatz; or Jozsef Deak, Water Resources Research Centre, Tel: (36-1) 215-6140/2171.
Czechs to distribute flood aid
Following the parliament's suggestions for allocation, the Czech government decided on May 27 on the specific distribution of four billion crowns worth of aid to the regions affected by last year's devastating floods, which left a third of Czech territory inundated last July, said Radio Prague.
Contact: Czech Union of Nature Conservation, tel: (420-2) 375-289; or Czech Environment Ministry, tel: (420-2) 6712-2040.
Norway, Slovakia team up
In a move that would make it easier for both nations to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets set under the Kyoto climate change protocol, Norway will contribute NKr 1.2 million (ECU 145,000) to convert boilers at two Slovakian industrial sites from coke-burning and natural gas to biofuels, Environment Daily News Service reported on May 25. Under the rules of the Kyoto agreement, Norway could potentially get credit for the greenhouse gas emission cuts that it facilitates in another country thereby lowering the amount they must reduce domestically, the report said. The Slovak projects are expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a total of 50,000 tons between 1998 and 2028, the news service reported.
Contact: Norwegian Environment Ministry, tel: (47-22) 249-090; or Slovak Environment Ministry, tel: (421-7) 516-2306.
W H O W E A R E
About Green Horizon
Green Horizon is a free newsletter designed to help journalists stay ahead of environmental news in Central and Eastern Europe. Twice a month, we'll offer tips on upcoming stories to watch for, as well as information and ideas to help you develop in-depth pieces about the region's environment. Green Horizon is produced by the Media Information Service (MIS) of the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe. The goal of the MIS is to assist the media in covering environmental issues. It is funded by the European Commission's DG-XI and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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