Press declaration 2006/30 – Tobias Pflüger (MEP) – Brussels, April 26, 2006

To mark the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Tobias Pflueger, a crossbench member of the European Parliament and coordinator for the left-wing GUE/NGL group on the Subcommittee for Security and Defence, a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Co-President of the Intergroup on Peace Initiatives, declares:

"On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe, the only option for the European Union as well as for worldwide energy supply is the promotion of an efficient and decentralised use of renewable energy sources instead of uranium and fossil fuels. An immediate phase-out of nuclear power is ultimately mandatory and there must not be a renaissance of atomic energy production.

What is now required are binding EU directives for renewable energies and energy efficiency. This is the prerequisite for an alternative energy policy.

In the current situation, it is scandalous that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) tries to water down the number of victims of the Chernobyl disaster. Apparently, this is only supposed to serve to make the dangerous dinosaur technology of atomic energy presentable once again.

By the industrial enrichment of uranium at Gronau/Germany and the use of weapon-grade uranium in Garching/Germany, the lack of credibility of the German and the EU position in the dispute over the Iranian atomic programme, is underscored once more. While Iran is asked to renounce uranium enrichment, the EU3 - Great Britain, France and Germany - continue to cling to uranium enrichment.

The message that today’s anniversary must convey is that every atomic weapon and every nuclear power plant is one too many. No distinction must be made between "good" and "bad" atomic energy and "good" and "bad" uranium enrichment."