Greenpeace protests "nuclear promotion" in EU draft Constitution

Press release - 29 May, 2003
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Greenpeace activists today placed a banner on Aachen's Charlemagne statue and unfurled three 6 metre streamers demanding "no nuclear constitution" from a rooftop as former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing arrived to receive the'Charlemagne Prize' [1].

The protest highlighted Greenpeace's opposition to Tuesday's (27 May) draft constitutional text which appended the EURATOM Treaty, as a protocol, thus requiring the EU to 'promote' nuclear power. Valery Giscard d´Estaing is head of the Praesidium (the ruling body of the Convention on the Future of Europe), the body which produced the draft text.

"Giscard d´Estaing must not endanger Europe's future through the promotion of a highly risky, outdated form of energy," said Greenpeace energy spokesperson, Stefan Schurig. "The experience of the last fifty years has shown that nuclear power is a source of incalculable dangers of huge proportions and that the ever-increasing mountains of nuclear waste cannot be safely disposed of anywhere in the world. Were nuclear power really to be supported by the European Constitution it would set us back decades in the matter of energy policy."

The EURATOM Treaty (the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community) is one of the founding Treaties of the European Community. Signed in Rome in 1957, the main aim of the Treaty is to undertake various measures that together promote and, to a lesser extent, to regulate nuclear power across Europe. Although a few minor procedural changes have been made, the Euratom Treaty today remains substantially unchanged, 46 years after it was drawn up, tasking the EU to promote nuclear despite most member countries not wishing to do so. EURATOM, unlike the European Coal and Steel Community, which expired in 2002, has no end date.

"This treaty is entirely inappropriate to the times and in no way reflects the actual circumstances in the EU today," says Stefan Schurig. "Six of the fifteen countries in the EU have never produced nuclear power and four have decided to phase it out. And one, Italy, has completed its phase out. In addition, in a resolution made on 12 March this year the German Bundestag called for the Euratom Treaty to be allowed to expire".

"Nuclear power must not be given a special position or further support in Europe," urged Schurig, "least of all with constitutional status. The German members of the Convention, especially Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer who has been surprisingly quiet on this issue, must categorically reject Giscard d'Estaing's proposal."

Notes: [1] The Charlemagne Award is presented each year by the city of Aachen to honour the recipient's work for European unification.

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