Tobias Pflüger (MEP), Explanation of vote, Strasbourg, Wednesday 15 March 2006

Tobias Pflüger (GUE/NGL), in writing. (DE) It is scandalous that, even 20 years after the Chernobyl disaster, two-thirds of MEPs should endorse the continued use of nuclear energy by voting in favour of the resolution on the Lisbon Strategy. Nuclear power remains a high-risk technology with incalculable consequences.

The spiralling use of nuclear power violates fundamental rights and irreparably worsens the living conditions of future generations. The extraction of uranium entails the massive over-exploitation of nature and the radioactive pollution of groundwater. Uranium can also be enriched, which is a means of producing material capable of being used in atomic weapons. It is in fact not really possible to absolutely separate ‘civil’ from military use of nuclear energy. Even the normal operation of nuclear reactors involves a permanent state of risk through such things as low-level radiation and the risk of contamination of the rivers used for cooling them.

There are recurrent instances of reprocessing plants causing the radioactive pollution over wide expanses of land and sea. To date, nobody has been able to solve the problem of how to manage and store highly radioactive waste, more of which is being produced on a daily basis and which will continue to emit radiation for another 10 000 years at least. The EUR 3.1 billion allocated to nuclear research by the EU’s seventh research framework programme (2007-2011) is double the amount allocated by its predecessor. Instead of investing in nuclear technologies, the EU should do more to develop renewable forms of energy. Decentralised supplies from renewable energy sources are the only way to guarantee long-term security of energy supply.