Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 7 September 2000 - Strasbourg

5. Nuclear submarine accidents

  President. – The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:

- B5­0704/2000 by Mr Sakellariou and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on nuclear submarines;

- B5­0707/2000 by Mr Belder, on behalf of the Europe of Democracies and Diversities Group, on the sinking of the Kursk submarine and the danger of nuclear pollution in the former Soviet Union;

- B5­0709/2000 by Mrs Thors and Mr Väyrynen, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the sinking of the Kursk submarine and the danger of nuclear pollution in the former Soviet Union;

- B5­0717/2000 by Mr Posselt and Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats, on the sinking of the Kursk submarine;

- B5­0725/2000 by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the danger of nuclear submarines;

- B5­0736/2000 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, on accidents involving nuclear submarines;

- B5­0738/2000 by Mr Sjöstedt and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the sinking of nuclear submarines.

  Belder (EDD). – (NL) Mr President, together with those who submitted the joint resolution, I, too, would like to express my deepest sympathy to the relatives of the Kursk nuclear submarine crew who died. May they find comfort and strength in God, who can only truly gauge their sorrow and will gladly relieve their suffering.

The dreadful humanitarian disaster involving the Kursk once again brought home to the Russian population and to us how dangerous the consequences of accidents involving nuclear-powered installations and craft can be, and how important it is to comply with nuclear safety regulations. This awareness-raising process has been set in motion, not least thanks to – and I would like to stress this here – those directly involved: Russian citizens and social organisations with a sense of responsibility. Their names are no secret. Not only do they deserve our respect, but also all the European support we can provide. How irresponsible, on the other hand, is the way the Russian authorities, fronted by the country’s military apparatus, deal with atomic energy? And that for as long as we can remember.

The nuclear contamination of the village Muslyumovo, in the southern Ural, with plutonium – and this is as long ago as 1949 – is a poignant example of this utterly reprehensible behaviour. According to a lady in the village, in the old days, mothers would contract leukaemia at the age of fifty. The same fate would befall their daughters at the tender age of twenty; nowadays, their grandchildren suffer from this deadly disease as young as two.

The joint resolution is absolutely right in highlighting the considerable nuclear risks which the dozens of scrapped nuclear submarines of the Russian northern fleet constitute. For the city of Murmansk and direct surroundings, I would like to add one major danger to this huge, potential risk to both the public and the environment, namely the cargo ship Lepse. Since the early sixties, this ship has served as a warehouse for atomic waste originating from nuclear-powered ice breakers. Due to the Lepse’s bad condition, its nuclear cargo should be transferred to and made safe in special containers ashore. At least, that has been the plan for years. Why has nothing been done about it? The answer is simple. It is down to the irresponsible attitude of the authorities, which refuse to meet the financier of the project, i.e. the European Union, halfway on two essential points: signing the agreement whereby Russia shoulders the responsibility for the activities, and the tax-free import of the required equipment for the operation. This is a striking example of Russia’s official stance in urgent matters of nuclear safety. The nuclear scandal in Moscow, which dates back to 1995, is also salient in this respect. At the time, the director of the scientific institute which developed nuclear, Chernobyl-like reactors, came up with an ‘enlightened’ plan to increase the budget of his institute by providing heating for the houses in the vicinity by means of the institute’s research reactor. The neighbourhood was tipped off in time and the whole plan was called off. In fact, the reactor was closed down. And how did the director Jevgeni Adamov fare? He made it to Russia’s Minister for Atomic Energy and is dreaming of another, far more profitable project, a real money-spinner: Russia as collection and processing point for foreign radioactive waste. May this serve as a warning to Europe.

  Plooij-van Gorsel (ELDR). – (NL) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is deeply touched by the recent disaster involving the Kursk submarine and shares in the grief of those left behind and the Russian people. In addition, we are greatly concerned about the nuclear time bomb and ecological disaster waiting to happen in the Barents Sea, involving the Kursk, but also other ship wrecks which are still located there. It is therefore of utmost importance for Russia to join forces with international organisations for nuclear safety, and I would ask the Commissioner to press Russia to take responsibility and inspect the still active nuclear submarines, adapting them to better safety requirements if necessary. There are plenty of international experts who could help Russia take stock of the problems and dismantle the nuclear waste present in the submarines in the Barents Sea. Needless to say, Russia must exercise complete openness and cooperate fully. Russia is also financially responsible. Could the Commission or Commissioner explain to me in what way the European Union can help Russia in the dismantling of shipwrecks and how it can stave off the nuclear radiation risk for our EU citizens?

  Posselt (PPE-DE). – (DE) Mr President, our prayers and sympathy go to the 118 sailors and their families. They deserve our solidarity. But it must also be considered that we have a major concern in connection with the Kursk disaster, namely the situation in Russia. We need to be quite clear that President Putin and the Russian authorities covered up a lot of the circumstances surrounding this accident. Facts were suppressed, falsified or hushed up. But in one interview he spoke the truth when he said that the Kursk accident was symptomatic of Russia's condition as a whole. This is a situation that we finally have to face up to. We have to see the reality for what it is. This is not just about nuclear safety and the nuclear submarine fleet, it is also about a mass of highly developed arms technologies for which there are no appropriate control and safety measures.

That is why it is of the utmost importance that we should do everything to ensure transparency finally reaches Russia. It is only because of Mr Nikitin, and the independent media, which face increased repression, that we heard about the disaster at all, four days after the event. Thanks to international support, it was at least possible to avoid the very worst and I hope that it will also be possible to find a solution. But that is not a satisfactory state of affairs. That is why they need not only our help, but also frank talking. What is called for is some plain speaking and an offer of cooperation that does not just mean reaching for our cheque book, but also includes developing the rule of law, democratic processes and independent media in Russia. The most important point is to educate and support all democratic forces, all the independent media, the administration, the judiciary, and young politicians, especially those in local government, so that Russia becomes a partner with whom we can safely live together in Eurasia.

I do not want to go into other issues such as Chechnya and a host of others at this point. Kursk by itself is symptomatic of how disasters in Russia can have a direct environmental and political impact on our part of Europe. That is why it is very much in our interest to make sure that Russia gradually becomes a democratic state where the rule of law prevails. What we are witnessing at present under President Putin is instead a retrograde trend which is a matter of great concern to us. So we have an enormous responsibility here.

  Schroedter (Verts/ALE). – (DE) Mr President, as other Members have already said, the Kursk accident demonstrates that even ten years after the end of the Cold War, military objectives are still considered more important than human life. I would also like to take this opportunity to express my deepest sympathy for the families who have been bereaved of their fathers and sons.

We know that it is not impossible that more people will yet be affected by this accident. Everyone is aware of the dangers posed by two nuclear reactors lying on the sea bed. However, no one knows how great the danger and the insidious impact on people's health will be. I therefore believe that we can only draw one conclusion from this accident: we have to finally admit that despite the end of the Cold War we – in both the East and the West – are still arming and rearming ourselves, and this is incredibly dangerous and will lead to people being killed. So we must finally put an end to this.

There can only be one response to this accident, and that response is ‘disarmament now’. This disarmament will only work if it is applied equally by the East and the West. That also means that it has to be pursued jointly, in cooperation. It must not mean that people like Alexander Nikitin, who take part in this and thus help to fight the continuing dangers to humanity of the Cold War and of armament, are eliminated.

I call on the Commission to make it crystal clear to the Russian Government that we will not accept further legal judgments against Nikitin or tolerate his being put on trial again.

  Marset Campos (GUE/NGL). – (ES) Mr President, our Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left entirely shares all the considerations and proposals regarding nuclear submarine accidents, which are a sad legacy from the Cold War. In order to show that it is not all one-sided, I am bound to refer to the situation of the British submarine which broke down on 12 May in Sicily and has been in Gibraltar, the only British colony in the Mediterranean, since 19 May. The situation is causing a great deal of alarm among the population, because, according to the Royal Navy’s own regulations, within a radius of 10 kilometres there is danger, within 100 kilometres there is still potential danger, and the submarine may only be repaired in category ‘X’ docks. The docks in Gibraltar are type ‘Z’. I find the neo-colonial behaviour on the part of the United Kingdom, which solved the problem by replacing a ‘Z’ with an ‘X’ on a piece of paper using correction fluid or an eraser, very strange. I think that it is important that the Commission and the Council demand that this submarine goes back to the United Kingdom and that they ensure that safety standards are complied with.

  Oostlander (PPE-DE). – (NL) Mr President, the sinking of the Kursk has – mainly as a result of Russia’s inadequate response – brought home to us the disastrous heritage of 70 years of Soviet power. The golden era of Communist nomenclature has generated a climate of such contempt towards people in the old Soviet Union, with so few standing a chance of survival in the present day, that this is why we are now facing this terrible disaster. This is at the heart of our resolution. In my opinion, the fact that the GUE Group is now tabling amendments which attempt to divert the attention away from this disaster by introducing a regional problem of a completely different nature displays very little taste indeed. It is, in fact, downright impudent. The European Union and European Parliament will need to put their foot down when it comes to the Kursk salvage operation. We will need to be involved in these operations, partly on humanitarian grounds. The recovery of the Kursk also highlights another problem, namely that of a large number of obsolete nuclear submarines in Russia, as well as the nuclear waste in the same northern region.

The European Union and European Parliament will need to make it clear that it is in Europe’s general interest, and as such in that of Russia, to lay this matter to rest sooner rather than later, firstly on behalf of the relatives, whom we offer our deepest sympathy, and secondly for the benefit of the nuclear situation in Europe. This is what our resolution is about.

  Pérez Royo (PSE). – (ES) Mr President, we are talking about the tragedy involving the Russian submarine Kursk and we do of course share all the considerations of this joint resolution on the subject. However, we must add immediately that, in order to gain credibility, the European Parliament and the European Union in general cannot ignore the fact that within its own territory there is a situation of serious nuclear risk as the result of a submarine accident, even though it is not, of course, of the tragic nature of the case of the Kursk. I am referring to the case mentioned previously by my colleague Mr Marset, the British submarine Tireless, which has been anchored in the port of Gibraltar since May, where the intention is to repair it.

It is a port which, has been pointed out, does not have the technical conditions or the location for repairing this type of vessel. The port is only equipped for repairing merchant ships, not warships and much less nuclear submarines. The problem cannot be solved by simply reclassifying it, because that reclassification could affect the technical conditions. But the problem is that the safety standards include emergency plans and special action for the population within a radius of ten kilometres, which in this case means around 200 000 people. That is something that cannot be improvised overnight, among other things because the population cannot be moved.

We must criticise the deplorable attitude of the British Government, but even more so the attitude of the Spanish Government, which maintained a deplorable and shameful silence on this issue until they were forced into a timid reaction by the protests from the inhabitants of the area.

I would like to conclude, Mr President, by saying that I am not in the habit of raising issues of domestic policy in this Parliament. But this is not a matter of domestic policy, but one of European security, it is a matter of European decency and I am raising it here in order to provoke a reaction from this Parliament and from the authorities of the Union in general in order to remedy this intolerable situation.

  Gasòliba i Böhm (ELDR). – (ES) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, and along with my colleague Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, we join others in offering our condolences to the victims of the Russian nuclear submarine, and in asking for greater cooperation between the European Union and the Russian authorities in order to prevent a further disaster. Obviously, we believe that the European Union has sufficient arguments to ensure such cooperation. We would also like to express our concern – as other speakers have done – because, unfortunately, the matter that we were to discuss, that of the very serious, terrible and fatal accident of the submarine Kursk has led us to deal with the problem of a nuclear submarine in Mediterranean waters, in European Union territory, in a British colony. This is causing very serious and justified alarm, due to a serious breakdown in the nuclear reactor, and because, among other things, European Union directives are not being complied with. We think that there is a need to take urgent action. The European Union must intervene, and this nuclear submarine needs to be urgently transported to a British base to be repaired under the proper conditions.

  Bautista Ojeda (Verts/ALE). – (ES) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as has been said, a British nuclear submarine has been moored at its Gibraltar base since 19 May. The smallest breakdown in the cooling system of a nuclear reactor can never be considered as insignificant, as it contains heavy water with radioactive isotopes. Moreover, the United Kingdom has knowingly failed to comply with Community regulations in terms of radiation protection, exposing its citizens in Gibraltar and those in Algeciras Bay to a very high probability of contamination, as it is now, and not last May, that it is recognising the extent of the breakdown. In this case, there has been a violation of Community law.

We complained that Russia took four days to inform the European Community about its accident. We took two months.

I suppose that the booing that we received from some British Members when we criticised the situation in this House was also directed at the citizens of Gibraltar.

In this House we criticised the lack of information for the population in the area and of reliable and official news from the United Kingdom. In the same way, we criticise something which is a reality: the United Kingdom, faced with considerable social pressures in the country, has decided to transfer its base for nuclear submarine operations and repairs to Algeciras Bay, without respecting its own standards, which do not allow it to have this type of base in highly populated areas.

Equally, we deplore the contemplative attitude of the Spanish Government, which only reacted when the pressure and concern reached a maximum.

For the above reasons, those of us from Andalusia ask this Parliament, and its President, far beyond the bilateral diplomatic interests of the Member States, to carry out the appropriate consultations and negotiations to make it possible to immediately transfer this submarine to bases that have sufficient security conditions to repair it and thus to put an end to the public alarm that has been created.

  Nielson, Commission. – The Commission shares the deep regrets expressed in the resolutions on the accident involving the Russian submarine the Kursk in the Arctic Bering Sea on 12 August and the loss of the lives of 118 seamen. We were particularly concerned about the policy of the Russian authorities in the first days after the accident on foreign assistance and information provided to the Russian population and the wider public. Russia is ultimately responsible for devising and implementing a plan to manage its nuclear waste and spent fuel, and the resolutions, therefore, quite rightly call upon Russia to use all available resources, including its own specialists.

The Commission considers that the international community should offer the necessary assistance to Russia. It has already launched a number of assistance projects under various Community programmes. Improved radioactive waste management in north-west Russia is one of the explicit priorities included in the new TACIS regulation covering the next seven years. The Commission welcomes any action that would increase the budget funding to be used to reduce the ideological threat in north-west Russia and in particular to enable laid-up nuclear submarines to be dismantled more quickly than 10 of the North Fleet's 100 disused nuclear submarines moored at various based in north-west Russia have been dismantled so far.

Besides the submarines, spent fuel from a number of nuclear-powered icebreakers also adds to the ecological risk. The lack of storage capacity for spent nuclear fuel remains one of the major bottlenecks in dismantling operations as a whole. Community-backed activities are studies to design and cost a storage facility in north-west Russia or in the southern Urals. In the light of these studies, the international community, perhaps including the European Community, might later finance the construction of such a storage facility.

To speed up dismantling, the Community is supporting the design, construction, and licensing of a transport and storage tank for damaged spent fuel produced in the operation of nuclear submarines and icebreakers and currently stored under primitive conditions. The Commission is also involved in a number of studies aiming to improve radioactive-waste management in north-west Russia.

Before concluding, I would like to stress the importance of international coordination in this immense task. To give two examples, the Commission is serving in the IAEA-sponsored contact expert group. The group's work might eventually make it possible to draw up a comprehensive strategy and key investment projects that should be supported by the international community and, together with a number of donor countries, the Commission is currently negotiating an agreement with the Russians. This agreement, known as the 'Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme', is intended to overcome obstacles to international aid stemming, for instance, from tax exemptions and nuclear liability. The Commission hopes that the Kursk accident will bring about real progress in these negotiations and, in particular, strengthen the resolve of the Russian authorities to conclude the agreement.

  Marset Campos (GUE/NGL). – (ES) Mr President, I would like to know whether the Commissioner has anything to say on the issue, which also relates to nuclear submarines, of the Tireless in Gibraltar. It has been raised by five Members in this House and he has not said anything about it. I am concerned: is it that he is deaf? Is it that he does not know what to do?

  Bautista Ojeda (Verts/ALE). – (ES) Mr President, we are talking about nuclear safety, and I repeat what was said by my colleague, Mr Marset Campos: we hope that the Commissioner will say something about our problem, a problem in the European Union that is affecting citizens from two Member States.

  Nielson, Commission. – I took the liberty, on behalf of the Commission, of responding to the issue that we have on the agenda. I find that quite natural. Discussion of other subjects would have to be covered by other means and under a different agenda item. I will be suggesting to my colleagues that we answer your questions in writing.

  Bautista Ojeda (Verts/ALE). – (ES) Mr President, the subject for today is ‘Nuclear submarine accidents’. The Conference of Presidents decided to also include the subject of the submarine in Gibraltar in the agenda.

(Applause)

  President. – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place today, at 5.30 p.m.