ANNEX 2
Hon. Margot Wallström
Commissioner for the Environment
European Commission
Rue de la Loi, 200
B-1049 Bruxelles
Belgium
Rome, February 6th, 2003
SUBJECT: URGENT: Request of postponement of environmental licensing for
the Cernavoda 2 NPP project, Romania
Dear Commissioner Wallström,
we recently came back from a Fact-Finding Mission to Romania regarding
the controversial Cernavoda 2 NPP (C2) project for which Euratom is
considering a ? 223 million loan to the Romanian government. During our
mission we held fruitful meetings with the energy and environment
experts at the EU delegation in Bucharest. You will be receiving our
mission report in the very next weeks.
In the meantime we have the urgency to share with you the main findings
of our mission - further detailed in the attached memorandum - and in
particular our concerns about the lack of capacity of Romanian nuclear
safety and environmental authorities to properly implement national and
international legislation in force in the case of the C2 project.
The Romanian Environment Ministry is expected to issue the environmental
license for the C2 project by mid February. We urgently request the
European Commission to urge the Romanian government to postpone the
environmental approval of the project with the aim of allowing a new and
adequate public consultation with Romanian affected communities and NGOs
and with neighbouring countries, such as Bulgaria, which might be
interested in receiving additional and thorough environmental
information about the controversial project from Romanian authorities.
We believe it crucial that the EU accession process be a key opportunity
to promote the application of environmental law in accession countries,
in particular in Romania, whose record still remains insufficient as
repeatedly admitted by EU authorities. At this regard the Cernavoda case
might offer a good opportunity to raise awareness among decision-makers
and civil society in Romania about the provisions under the new
environmental law recently enforced.
It should be noted that on January 17th, 2003 the new Romanian
Environmental Protection Law came into force by adopting the EU
directive 85/337/EEC as amended by the 97/11/EC Council Deirective
within the accession process. As remarked by the environmental experts
at the EU delegation in Bucharest it is needed to urge Romanian
authorities to fully implement the new environmental legislation soon.
Our independent environmental due diligence of the project has detected
an inadequate public consultation process potentially in violation of
the Romanian Environmental Protection law 137/195, and related
Ministerial Order No. 125/1996, in force at the time when public
consultations took place. Furthermore, at a first glance the
environmental documentation made available to the public during public
meetings in August/September 2001 included no adequate information about
environmental and safety impacts associated with the C2 project and did
not inform about potential non-nuclear alternatives, as explicitly
requested under both former and current environmental law.
We welcome European Commission's commitment to monitor developments of
bilateral relations between Romania and its neighbours as concerns the
significance of the project in a transboundary context and the
implementation by Romanian authorities of the provisions under the
UN/ECE Espoo Convention - which has been ratified by and entered into
force in all countries but Yugoslavia in the past years.
Bulgarian authorities have recently extended the timeline for collecting
comments from NGOs and Bulgarian affected people about the transboundary
impacts in Bulgaria of the C2 project. At a meeting with the Bulgarian
Environment Deputy Minister in Sofia on 18th January, 2003 we realised
that Romanian authorities provided Bulgaria with an inadequate summary
of the full EIA project document, thus, in our view, in violation of the
provisions under the Espoo Convention. Since the recent difficult
relationship between the two countries on environmental and nuclear
safety issues, we believe that an intervention of the European
Commission could facilitate the consultation process by seetting a
significant precedent of proper implementation of environmental
international legislation between the two countries.
We would like also to draw your attention to the complete lack of
independence of the Romanian Nuclear Regulator, CNCAN, that we detected
during our mission. The Fact-Finding Mission formally requested separate
meetings with the nuclear regulator - which is also the Secretary of
State of the Romanian Ministry of Water and Environmental Protection -
the environmental authorities and the nuclear state-owned company, SNN.
Nevertheless we have been allowed to meet environmental experts only in
presence of representatives of the nuclear company who systematically
influenced the meeting and even the translation of the contributions by
the environmental authorities.
Finally we have to express our regret that the Fact-Finding Mission was
denied access to the nuclear power plant in Cernavoda, after providing
in advance nuclear authorities with all needed information. While
reacting to our complains about the modalities by which the mission was
diverted to the Cernavoda site and then not allowed to visit the plant,
Mr. Chirica, director of the SNN international affairs division, bluntly
stated on-the-record its full lack of interest in the possibility that
the mission had reported to the European Commission and national
governments about the unfortunate case. We urge you to ask clarification
to SNN about this event and also about the lack of consideration that
Romanian nuclear officials have of those governments who have been
requested to approve a Euratom loan for the Cernavoda 2 NPP project.
We have also informed Commissioners Verheugen and Solbes, who have the
responsibility for the Romanian application for a Euratom loan as
concerns respectively the safety and lead economic due diligence of the
project, about our concerns in a separate letter. We hope you will act
soon on project-related environmental legal issues in order to prevent
that an environmental license for the project will be issued before
adequate environmental due diligence and public consultation in Romania
and with neighbouring countries be carried out by Romanian authorities
in compliance with national and international environmental law.
We would be pleased to have the opportunity of meeting you in Brussels
in order to personally submit the mission report to your Office and
present in detail our concerns about project impacts. We look forward to
your reply to our requests and remain
Sincerely yours
Antonio Tricarico Olexi Pasyuk
Campagna per la riforma della Banca mondiale CEE Bankwatch Network
Via Tommaso da Celano, 15 Kominterna 1
00179 Roma 01032, Kiev
Italia Ukraine