WRITTEN QUESTION E-0023/03 by Yves Piétrasanta (Verts/ALE), Marie Isler Béguin (Verts/ALE),Renzo Imbeni (PSE), Catherine Guy-Quint (PSE), Harlem Désir (PSE),Alonso Puerta (GUE/NGL), Gérard Onesta (Verts/ALE),Francis Wurtz (GUE/NGL), Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca (PPE-DE),Charles Tannock (PPE-DE), Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Verts/ALE),Monica Frassoni (Verts/ALE), Giuseppe Di Lello Finuoli (GUE/NGL),Pedro Marset Campos (GUE/NGL), Alexander de Roo (Verts/ALE),Didier Rod (Verts/ALE), Danielle Auroi (Verts/ALE), Paul Lannoye (Verts/ALE),Bart Staes (Verts/ALE), Caroline Jackson (PPE-DE), Struan Stevenson (PPE-DE),Theodorus Bouwman (Verts/ALE), Armando Cossutta (GUE/NGL),Nuala Ahern (Verts/ALE), Jan Wiersma (PSE)and Robert Goodwill (PPE-DE) to the Council. EU aid and intervention for the victims of Chernobyl.
Date: 2003-01-20
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Belarus, Ukraine, aid policy, health aid, humanitarian aid, public health, radioactive pollution

C 222 E/136

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

18.9.2003

Given that this project could infringe EU environmental legislation, what measures will the Commission
take, as guardian of the Treaties, to ensure compliance with Community law and, more specifically,
Directive 85/337/EEC (1) on the assessment of the repercussions of certain projects on the environment
and Directive 92/43/EEC (2) on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora?

(1) OJ L 175, 5.7.1985, p. 40.
(2) OJ L 206, 22.7.1992, p. 7.

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(25 February 2003)

With regard to Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain
public and private projects on the environment (1), Article 2 of the Directive stipulates that, before consent
is given, projects likely to have significant effects on the environment by virtue, inter alia, of their nature,
size or location must be made subject to an assessment with regard to their effects. Article 3 stipulates that
this assessment must identify, describe and assess in an appropriate manner the direct and indirect effects
of a project on several factors, including fauna and flora.

The Commission will be contacting the Spanish authorities very shortly to question them about the
contents of the impact assessment called into question by the Honourable Member and to ask them for
information on how Directive 85/337/EEC, and Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the
conservation of natural habitats and of wild flora and fauna (2), have been applied in this instance.

As guardian of the Treaties, the Commission will in any event take the necessary steps to ensure that
Community law is complied with in this particular case.

(1) OJ L 175, 5.7.1985.
(2) OJ L 206, 22.7.1992.

(2003/C 222 E/159)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0023/03

by Yves Piétrasanta (Verts/ALE), Marie Isler Béguin (Verts/ALE),
Renzo Imbeni (PSE), Catherine Guy-Quint (PSE), Harlem Désir (PSE),
Alonso Puerta (GUE/NGL), Gérard Onesta (Verts/ALE),
Francis Wurtz (GUE/NGL), Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca (PPE-DE),
Charles Tannock (PPE-DE), Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Verts/ALE),
Monica Frassoni (Verts/ALE), Giuseppe Di Lello Finuoli (GUE/NGL),
Pedro Marset Campos (GUE/NGL), Alexander de Roo (Verts/ALE),
Didier Rod (Verts/ALE), Danielle Auroi (Verts/ALE), Paul Lannoye (Verts/ALE),
Bart Staes (Verts/ALE), Caroline Jackson (PPE-DE), Struan Stevenson (PPE-DE),
Theodorus Bouwman (Verts/ALE), Armando Cossutta (GUE/NGL),
Nuala Ahern (Verts/ALE), Jan Wiersma (PSE)
and Robert Goodwill (PPE-DE) to the Council

Subject: EU aid and intervention for the victims of Chernobyl

(20 January 2003)

The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 was the most serious nuclear accident ever to
have occurred in peacetime, leaving a terrifying and devastating radioactive legacy that will continue to be
felt for many centuries to come, mainly in the European states of Ukraine and, above all, Belarus, countries
already fragile as a result of undergoing abrupt economic, social and political transition.

As well as the great many victims directly affected by radiation among the local inhabitants and the
600 000 ‘liquidators’ who took part in the clean-up operation at the site of this tragedy of the industrial
age, there are also those who have been forced to stay in the area or return there, due to economic
constraints or political obscurantism.

18.9.2003

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 222 E/137

Invisible but ever-present, caesium-137 and strontium-90, radionuclides with a half-life of around 30 years,
have caused long-term damage to 5 % of Ukrainian and 23 % of Belarussian soil, reducing the local
populations to a state of subsistence living. At present, the situation is characterised by pandemics of
thyroid cancer,
leukaemia, congenital deformities, and an unprecedented ecological genocide far
outstripping any individual state’s budgetary, sanitary and medical capacities, let alone those of successor
states to the Soviet Union. The scientific community predicts that, in terms of ecological fallout in the
ecosystem and pathological after-effects, the worst is yet to come for the ‘Chernobyl generations’.

One scientist, Professor V. B. Nesterenko (1), director of the independent Belarussian Institute of Radiation
Safety ‘Belrad’, is conducting pioneering research into nuclear pathologies, devoting all his efforts and the
meagre resources available to the Institute to developing medical follow-up and treatments for the people
of the affected region, in the face of the numerous difficulties and constraints prevalent in Belarus.

Confronted with this human drama and the challenge of reconciling needs with resources, does the
Council recognise that the political situation in Belarus can under no circumstances justify a withdrawal or
even a disengagement from the Union’s duty to provide humanitarian and medical assistance for this
European people, but rather that it calls for a redoubling of efforts and presence to help this martyred
people and its independent medical personnel and scientists?

What recommendations does the Council intend to make to the Commission in support of the Belrad
Institute and its director, Professor Nesterenko, following the guidelines set out by its previous president,
Mr Aznar (2)?

Why will the Council not encourage the Commission to set up a programme of curative holidays for
Belarussian, Ukrainian and Russian children within the EU’s medical services and hospitals?

(1) http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/vines/860/Nester/nesteree.htm.
(2) We must make use of the TACIS programme to combat the consequences of the tragedy of the accident at
Chernobyl. These actions (TACIS) must be carried out through civil society, given that the current state of bilateral
relations between the European Union and Belarus does not allow actions or programmes of cooperation to be
carried out with the Belarussian government or administration (30 April 2002).

Reply

(8 May 2003)

The Council notes that the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are still very much in evidence in
Ukraine and Belarus. The EU has been giving assistance to those countries and their inhabitants
throughout recent years and remains committed to offering support and assistance to civil society in
Belarus.

However, unless a significant opening of the Belarus authorities towards democratisation provides a basis
for revision of the 1997 GAC conclusions, EC intervention will continue to focus on Civil Society,
Training and Education and humanitarian projects related to the effects of Chernobyl in the region of
Gomel.

It is in this spirit of assistance to the people of Belarus that the Commission is currently funding a project
addressing the impact of the Chernobyl disaster on the surrounding populations of Ukraine and the two
‘Sustainable Development of Regions Affected by the
neighbouring countries, Russia and Belarus,
Chernobyl Disaster’ and has decided to elaborate for Belarus a Country Strategy Paper and the TACIS
Indicative Programme for the period 2004-2006. It will be prepared this year to be presented to the TACIS
Committee for opinion at a meeting in summer or early autumn.

The Council, furthermore, recalls that some EU Member States also provide bilateral assistance to Belarus,
including a children’s clinic specialising in cancer and an orphanage, and that the EU position regarding
the Belarus authorities does not prevent private initiatives to develop humanitarian assistance to the
Belarussian population.