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promotion of a highly risky, outdated form of energy," said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.