WRITTEN QUESTION E-3105/02 by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Export of radioactive waste from EU countries as an important source of income for Serbia during and after the Milosevic period.
Date: 2002-10-29
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU Member State, EU environmental policy, EU relations, Serbia and Montenegro, carriage of goods, export monitoring, export of waste, nuclear safety, polluted area, radioactive pollution, radioactive waste

C 161 E/66

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

10.7.2003

Answer given by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission

(16 December 2002)

Following the Enron scandal, Andersen ceased to operate as a global company and Andersen partners in
the Union sought to join one of the other four large accounting firms (i.e KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers,
Deloitte & Touche Tohmatsu and Ernst & Young). The arrangements that were negotiated varied from one
Member State to another.

Only three of the mergers that were agreed in the Community fell within the scope of the Community
Merger Regulation (1), these being the transactions that took place in Germany, France and the United
Kingdom. The investigation carried out in these cases confirmed that the large five accounting firms served
a distinct market for large and international firms which would in any case have recourse to the big
accounting firms with an international network only. Thus the local Andersen companies, deprived of the
network, were no longer able on their own to keep their large customers, and the mergers, in themselves,
would not contribute to the possible worsening of competition resulting from the loss of one of the Big
Five auditors. No significant concerns regarding competition in this market were raised by customers
during the investigation. Thus the three transactions were cleared by the Commission (2). Other
transactions were scrutinised by the national competition authorities of the Member States concerned and
were eventually cleared.

The Commission is not aware of grounds for intervention in this sector on the basis of articles 81 and 82
of the EC Treaty. The Commission shares the concerns of the Honourable Member on the structure of the
industry, and will continue to pay close attention to this industry and in particular to possible regulatory
developments emerging from the recent scandals.

(1) Council Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89 of 21 December 1989 on the control of concentrations between

undertakings, OJ L 395, 30.12.1989.

(2) M.2810 Deloitte & Touche/Andersen UK, Art. 6(1)(b) decision on 1 July 2002 M.2824 Ernst & Young/Andersen
Germany Art. 6(1)(b) decision on 27 August 2002M.2816 Ernst & Young/Andersen France, Art. 6(1)(b) decision on
5 September 2002 http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/mergers/cases/index/by_cy_a.html#an_.

(2003/C 161 E/070)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3105/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(29 October 2002)

Subject: Export of radioactive waste from EU countries as an important source of income for Serbia during

and after the Milosevic period

1.
Is the Commission aware of the reports made by the Serbian citizens Nada Ajdacic, Bozidor
Bogdanovic and Ilic Sibin that EU Member States have been exporting nuclear waste to Serbia since 1989
or even earlier, and that this trade in radioactive waste was even the main source of foreign earnings
during the Milosevic regime as EUR 1 500 per kilo was paid?

2.
Is the Commission also aware that these imports were and are being arranged through the Serbian
company Eastpoint, owned by Zoran Drakulic, which cooperates with Marc Rich, an oil and metals dealer,
whose speciality was to arrange trade with isolated States such as South Africa at the time of apartheid and
Iran under the ayatollahs?

Did it come to the Commission’s attention in any way that during the period in which trade with
3.
and transport to Serbia was restricted, the importation of radioactive material nonetheless took place via
the Montenegrin harbour of Bar, from where the consignments continued by train to the Danube and
subsequently along the Romanian border by water to Kladovo at the Iron Gate dam, and that the then
mayor of Kladovo, Mr Sibin, refused to accept a consignment of nuclear waste from a German firm but the
consignment went through despite his opposition?

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Official Journal of the European Union

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Are these exports from the EU area based on agreements between companies or between
4.
governments? Which bodies in the EU should have tried to prevent such consignments? Why did this
not happen?

5. Why did these consignments, which pose a threat to public health and the environment and were
intended to keep a criminal regime in power, continue after the fall of Milosevic in October 2000?

6. What is the Commission doing to bring this trade to an end as soon as possible?

(2003/C 161 E/071)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3106/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(29 October 2002)

Subject: Serious environmental pollution in the Borska Rek valley in Serbia as a result of the unnecessary

use of radioactive waste imported from EU countries in copper mining

1.
Is the Commission aware that the Borska Rek river valley near the city of Bor in the east of Serbia, is
not only used to store huge mountains of industrial and household waste, as a result of which the river
water is black and no trees, shrubs or grass can grow within 10 metres of the river banks, but that it is
also where the radioactive waste that Serbia imports from EU countries ends up; trade unions estimate that
the average life expectancy of inhabitants in the vicinity of storage and processing, which is conspicuously
absent from page 53 of the statistical yearbook for the region, is 48 years of age?

2.
Is the Commission also aware that the argument in favour of importing a concentrate contained in
radioactive waste is that radioactive material is useful for mining copper ore containing only 0,30 % of
copper and that some of this material is used by the mining company RTB established near Bor since
1902. However, this argument cannot be given credence because RTB is not mining the large quantities of
deeper high-grade ore that contains 3 % copper, probably because there would then no longer be any
justification for the profitable importation of radioactive concentrate?

3. Will the Commission be contacting the experts, Ajdacic and Bogdanovic, who earlier sounded the
alarm in connection with the risks to public health and the environment but were then threatened,
dismissed and robbed of their instruments, with a view to establishing the true nature and scale of the
problem?

4. What is the EU or its Member States doing to make good as far as possible the damage caused near
Bor and around the storage sites in Alexinac and Belgrade where radiation levels are high as a result of
exports from the EU area? What is being done to compensate survivors financially for the loss of their
family members?

Source: Rotterdams Dagblad of 10 October 2002.

Joint answer
to Written Questions E-3105/02 and E-3106/02
given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(21 January 2003)

From the context it would seem that the origin of the radioactive waste stems from copper mining, which
may occasionally give rise to residues with enhanced concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclides
materials (NORM). NORM materials have been regulated within the Euratom framework of basic safety
standards since 1996 (1).

In addition, the shipment of radioactive waste between Member States as well as into and out of the
Community is addressed by Council Directive 92/3/Euratom (2). This Directive has introduced a system for
the administrative supervision and control of such shipments.