Mr President, Commissioner, the European Parliament has, once again, missed an opportunity to do some straight talking about nuclear energy. It has, once again, side-stepped a fundamental debate on the safe transport of dangerous materials, as if nuclear energy were still the domain of experts and the advocates of nuclear energy and that the debate will, by necessity, be passionate and controversial. I attempted to open this debate at the public hearing on 21 January 2000 when I was the first rapporteur. The all-powerful nuclear lobby pulled strings again, however. Although the first report by Mr Maurice was never presented during the previous legislature, the report before us could have been a step forward but that will not happen. The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism adopted a resolution, with the full support of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which reveals nothing of the concern about opinion on the extremely sensitive issues surrounding the transport of radioactive materials, whereas my original report was perfectly in tune with the changing views of European citizens on these issues. This is indeed a dramatic turn of events, which gives us cause to condemn the subtle workings of the agreements between large political groups manipulated by the pro-nuclear lobby. So, despite the work we have done, the draft resolution before us runs counter to the original proposals and, as a Member of Parliament, I cannot agree to it appearing in a resolution; perhaps silence is tantamount to a crime. Although on many points I had managed to achieve a fair number of compromises between Members who had worked on this matter and tabled amendments, all this work was smashed to pieces the day before the vote in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism when the main groups refused to vote in favour of our compromises. The main issues surrounding the transport of radioactive materials, such as transparency, safety and, more importantly, ways of reducing these transports, have been curtailed in the report that was presented to you. The report adopted by the Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism is nothing but a paean to the nuclear industry. As proof of the influence that the pro-nuclear lobby had in the drafting of this change, the amendments presented by the conservatives and the s are absolutely identical, word-for-word, as are the acknowledgements from the lobby to the Members, who have gone along with the whole thing. They want us to believe that the transport of radioactive materials is not a matter for the nuclear industry and that we, the Group of the , are in the wrong debate. I should like to see an end to this hypocrisy! Although most radioactive waste often takes the form of small packages to be used in laboratories and medicine, this is not the most dangerous material. In fact, the transport of radioactive waste presents the greatest risk due to the levels of radioactivity. To say the opposite would be a manipulation of the truth. Therefore, we are not being in the least bit provocative in raising the issue of the treatment of these radioactive packages, since we are aware that the entire policy on the safe transport of radioactive materials is based on packaging, which would be guaranteed against all eventualities. Yet, we are aware that many radioactive products including the most toxic, such as plutonium, are being transported around Europe. Is it a crime of lèse-majesté to want to see an end to these bombs on wheels? In my report, I tried to provide answers to these issues and to raise the critical question about the origin of radioactive materials transportation. At this point, we reach the issue of the nuclear industry and of nuclear waste reprocessing in particular, since reprocessing in plants in The Hague and Sellafield is what actually causes most radioactive waste to be transported. If reprocessing did not take place, radioactive waste would not be transported. That is the simplest solution and it is possible, because we are aware that reprocessing is an economic and ecological anomaly, given what we now know. The most recent development in the transport of highly radioactive materials is that waste from MOX-fuel processing plants is stored, quite illegally, in The Hague. This means, Mr President, that it has been illegally transported as well. There is no point in seeking to curtail the debate, as the report is trying to do. We might improve it, on the other hand, by voting in favour of the amendments that I have just presented.

Political group: Verts-ALE