WRITTEN QUESTION No. 2396/98 by Laura GONZÁLEZ ÁLVAREZ , Pedro MARSET CAMPOS to the Commission. Radiation leak in Algeciras (Spain)
Date: 1998-07-27
Institutions: European Parliament, GONZALEZ ALVAREZ, MARSET CAMPOS
Subjects: Spain, ionising radiation, nuclear chemistry, nuclear safety, public health, radioactive materials, radioactive pollution

C 135/48

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

14.5.1999

(1999/C 135/055)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2381/98

by Florus Wijsenbeek (ELDR) to the Commission

Subject: Failure to clarify conditions applicable to cabotage

(27 July 1998)

Is the Commission aware that since the introduction of limited cabotage, an inventory of the conditions
subject to which cabotage may be authorised has been made only once?

Does the Commission further realise that new countries have since acceded to the Union and that no
general review of the relevant conditions has ever been provided for those countries?

Has Commission any plans to draw up and publish a comprehensive review outlining the relevant
conditions? If so, when? If not, why not?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(6 October 1998)

Article 6 of Regulation (EEC) 3118/93 of 25 October 1993 laying down the conditions under which non-
resident carriers may operate national road haulage services within a Member State (1) states that (save as
provided in Community regulations) regulations and administrative provisions in force in the ‘host’
Member State apply in five areas that are enumerated in the Regulation. These five areas are rates and
conditions governing the transport contract, weights and dimensions of road vehicles, requirements
relating to the carriage of certain categories of goods, driving and rest time, and value added tax (VAT) on
transport services.

The Commission is aware that a number of national organisations produce, for their own members,
extensive inventories of national rules in other countries. For example, an inventory produced by
Transport en Logistiek Nederland covers 49 countries in its 1998 edition.

It would not be appropriate for the Commission to create and update a manual of the national legislation
applicable in all these areas, but it may be useful for an international organisation of road hauliers to
coordinate such work so as to avoid duplication.

(1) OJ L 279, 12.11.1993.

(1999/C 135/056)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2396/98

by Laura González Álvarez (GUE/NGL)
and Pedro Marset Campos (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

Subject: Radiation leak in Algeciras (Spain)

(27 July 1998)

In June 1998 it emerged that there had been a radiation leak at the Acerinox plant in Algeciras, in the
Spanish province of Cadiz. The Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (Nuclear Safety Council) was told that a
caesium 137 isotope with a half-life of 30 years which can penetrate the muscular system had become
volatile during the smelting of scrap metal in which the radioactive substance was lodged. The
contaminated scrap metal was placed in the plant’s smelting furnace and radioactivity passed into the
atmosphere and the slag, causing a radiation leak which may well have been responsible for the high levels
of caesium 137 recorded in France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy between 25 May and 2 June 1998.

Traces of caesium 137 had also been found at two waste treatment plants to which the steelworks had been
sending its waste to be fully detoxified. Both plants have since been shut down and sealed off, and its staff
denied access to contaminated areas.