Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the dismantling of obsolete nuclear installations and the correct treatment and final destination of the resulting radioactive waste are an issue of great industrial and environmental relevance within the debate on the future of the energy supply necessary for the world’s sustainable development. Fortunately, we now have the necessary scientific and technological knowledge to ensure that these operations are carried out in conditions which are safe for the workers involved and for the public in general, and it is the role of the public authorities to supply the appropriate resources and ensure that the legislation in force in this field is respected. To this end we should welcome the Commission’s document on the historical liabilities from the Joint Research Centre installations. This document establishes the financial and technical bases for the dismantling of obsolete nuclear installations and for the closing of others which are still operating, as well as for the final storage of the radioactive waste already generated and waste resulting from the proposed process. The Commission’s document has been considerably improved and supplemented after its passage through this Parliament’s Industry Committee, and also as a result of the rigorous reports of the Committees on Budgets and the Environment. In particular, I will mention six points in relation to which our parliamentary work has made particularly significant contributions. Firstly, Parliament considers that a programme of this scope and duration cannot be left to the whim of each year’s budget. Therefore, we ask the Commission and the Council to immediately begin a tripartite dialogue on this issue during which the three institutions will set a specific, stable and sufficient budgetary action line. Of course, the expenditure incurred cannot in any way jeopardise the funds destined for research within the successive framework programmes. Given that this point, Commissioner, is, if you will pardon the expression, the weakest in the document, and recognising that with in the current financial perspective there is no easy solution to it, I would ask you to make a clear statement about this in your speech. Secondly, the Member States that are affected must fully participate in the development of the programme, since this will be implemented subject to the respective legislation on nuclear safety and radiological protection. Thirdly, all the operations must be carried out in a totally transparent manner, in such a way that the workers who participate in them, and the populations in neighbouring areas, are fully and reliably informed and, of course, listened to. Fourthly, the experience gained and the technological advances which stem from these operations must be taken advantage of in similar situations in the applicant countries, who should be persuaded to participate in them by means of the PHARE and TACIS programmes. Fifthly, Parliament will monitor the programme in detail by means of receiving an exhaustive and accurate annual report. Sixthly, a committee of external independent experts will advise the Joint Research Centre and assess the technical quality and safety guarantees of the programme during its development. I would not like to conclude without acknowledging the loyal cooperation of the staff of the Joint Research Centre, who have constantly gone out of their way to provide the information requested of them, as well as the valuable contributions of the various Members of Parliament with whom I have maintained useful and constructive exchanges of view, in particular Mrs McNally, Mrs Ahern, Mrs Maes and Mrs Buitenweg. Despite the fact that any issue relating to the nuclear industry is inevitably controversial and hindered by excessive emotion, the fact that the final agreement on the text which the Industry Committee has communicated to Parliament has been unanimous, provides a measure of the maturity and responsibility of this House when it comes to supporting an objective which is both desirable and urgent: a definitive, safe and clean solution with regard to the nuclear installations which have come to the end of their useful life.

Political group: PPE-DE