WRITTEN QUESTION E-2980/96 by Katerina Daskalaki (UPE) to the Commission (8 November 1996)

Subject: Ecological disaster in the Aegean

Scientific surveys show that the Aegean is facing a terrible ecological disaster, since every day it is being polluted by hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of urban and industrial waste from Turkey. In particular, the Pergamon gold mining plant operates without any special anti-pollution technology, and the two thermoelectric plants at Gokova and Yutagan generate a particularly large volume of pollution, even though Turkey borrowed ECU 4,5 million from the EIB to install anti-pollution technology at these plants.

Can the Commission say how this money was spent by Turkey, and what measures it intends to take to deal with these sources of pollution as well as the pollution caused by thousands of factories in the Gulf of Izmir that have turned it, according to scientific studies, into a dead sea?

What does the Commission know about the nuclear plant planned by Turkey in the region of Akkuyu which is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes?

Joint answer to Written Questions E-2940/96, E-2979/96 and E-2980/96 given by Mr Van den Broek on behalf of the Commission (17 January 1997)

The Commission is aware of the pollution problems in the Aegean and the attendant environmental risks caused by the Turkish-based industrial plants to which the Honourable Members refer.

The Commission would stress that the EC-Turkey Association Council, in its resolution of 6 March 1995 on the extension of cooperation between the Community and Turkey, considered schemes to develop and strengthen environmental protection absolutely vital.

Under the MEDA programme, the Turkish authorities have submitted to the Commission a project aimed at assessing and monitoring marine, air and soil pollution along the country's coastline. The project has been - and is being - discussed by Turkish and Community experts. Whether it is funded will depend on the availability of resources under the 1997 budget.

As a contracting party to the Barcelona Convention and its protocols, Turkey is bound to honour its obligations, assuming that they are relevant to this case.

It is, however, for the Turkish government alone to take the decisions needed to tackle the pollution threatening the Aegean ecosystem.

The Honourable Members refer to ECU 4,5 million loaned to Turkey for the purposes of promoting clean technologies and funding the Gökova and Yutagan thermal power stations. The Commission would point out that the European Investment Bank (EIB) has no record of the loans in question.

The EIB's lending in Turkey is part of financial cooperation under the New Mediterranean Policy, a horizontal Community policy. Such loans are intended to fund investment in energy, transport and telecommunications projects of interest to one or more Mediterranean countries and the Community, and in projects to protect the Mediterranean environment. The latter enjoy a 3% interest rate subsidy financed by the Community budget. In Turkey, as in the other Mediterranean countries, the EIB attaches considerable importance to the environment.

Of loans totalling ECU 339 million made by the EIB in Turkey over the period 1992-1996, ECU 170 million went to four environmental projects. They concern the construction of a sewer network and sewage treatment plant in Antalya, a sewer network in Ankara and an industrial waste collection and processing system in Kocaeli province, and the installation of desulphurization equipment at the Yeniköy power station.

With regard to the environmental impact of establishing a petrochemicals plant on the Asia Minor coast opposite the island of Lesbos, Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment applies only to the Member States. Turkey is not a signatory to the Espoo Convention on environmental impact assessment in a transboundary context, which provides for the assessment of projects involving petrochemical products.

As for the project to build a nuclear power station in the Akkuyiu region, the Turkish authorities launched an international invitation to tender for the construction of such a plant on 17 December 1996.