2.10.2012   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 296/19

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having regard to Accession Treaty Protocol No 4 on the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania, and Protocol No 9 on unit 1 and unit 2 of the Bohunice V1 nuclear power plant in Slovakia, and Article 30 of the Protocol concerning the conditions and arrangements for admission of the Republic of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union,

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having regard to the Council Regulations on the implementation of Protocol No 4 on the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania (1), on the implementation of Protocol No 9 on Unit 1 and Unit 2 of the Bohunice V1 nuclear power plant in Slovakia (2) and on financial assistance of the Union with respect to the decommissioning of Units 1 to 4 of the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant in Bulgaria (Kozloduy Programme) (3),

—

having regard to the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the use of financial resources earmarked for the decommissioning of nuclear installations (COM(2007)0794) and the accompanying document ‘EU decommissioning funding data’ (SEC(2007)1654),

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having regard to the Commission Recommendation of 24 October 2006 on the management of financial resources for the decommissioning of nuclear installations (4),

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having regard to Rule 48 of its Rules of Procedure,

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having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the opinion of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (A7-0054/2011),

A.

whereas the three EU candidate countries, Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria, operated old nuclear power plants (NPPs) which were agreed to be closed, and the accession negotiations led to early fixed closure dates for the units in the three NPPs concerned,

B.

whereas the EU recognised that the early shut-down and subsequent decommissioning of these units in the three NPPs represented a significant financial and economical burden which could not be fully covered by the Member States concerned, and therefore the Treaties of Accession, as well as subsequent Council Regulations for the implementation of these Treaties, provided for financial assistance to the respective Member States; whereas, however, it was not clearly decided whether the assistance should cover the full cost of decommissioning or compensate for all economic consequences; notes that both Bulgaria and Slovakia for the time being remain net exporters of electricity,

C.

whereas the assistance provides for measures in the following areas:

D.

whereas the assistance started before accession and before the respective units were shut down, and funds accumulated within the International Decommissioning Support Funds (IDSFs) while administrative preparations continued,

E.

whereas the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and the management of their waste is a technically complex operation requiring substantial financial resources and involving environmental, technical, social and financial responsibilities,

1.

Notes that Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria have fulfilled their accession treaty commitments to close the respective units in the three NPPs in a timely manner: Ignalina NPP Unit 1 was shut down on 31 December 2004 and Unit 2 on 31 December 2009; Bohunice V1 NPP Unit 1 was shut down on 31 December 2006 and Unit 2 on 31 December 2008; Kozloduy NPP Units 1 and 2 were shut down on 31 December 2002 and Units 3 and 4 on 31 December 2006;

2.

Notes also that all three Member States tried to re-negotiate their political commitments regarding closing the reactors and this led to delays in the process;

3.

Notes the existence of a legal basis for granting the financial assistance; notes that the amounts are established annually through a Commission decision, based on individual annual combined programming documents, permitting control over the development and financing of the approved projects;

4.

Notes that due to the limited EU experience and data in the field of decommissioning, the financial assistance was decided without the possibility of defining a financial ceiling; notes that there were still no clear conditions for specification on ceilings even after the plans and strategies for decommissioning had been drawn up, which meant that further financial assistance had to be decided on a stage-by-stage and case-by-case basis;

5.

Considers that the purpose of the Community assistance is to support these three Member States in coping with the financial and economical burden caused by early fixed closure dates, and to cover the cost of many important decommissioning activities, invest in energy projects with the aim of reducing energy dependency and help to mitigate the social impact of the decommissioning of the power plants; notes, however, that in all three cases the costs for decommissioning of the power plants have exceeded the planned EU assistance, and are also likely to exceed the initial estimates; notes also that a high share of the funds was used for energy projects and not for the main aim of the financial assistance, namely NPP decommissioning;

6.

Believes that the concept of European Union solidarity contributes effectively to mitigating the economic consequences of early closure in the energy sector; notes, however, that at the time of preparation of this report, the decommissioning itself is still in its initial stage;

7.

Notes that the decommissioning of the nuclear power plants concerned should be assigned the highest priority in the interests of the safety and health of all the people of Europe;

8.

Fears that a lack of financial resources for decommissioning measures will delay the decommissioning of nuclear power plants and threaten the environment and human health;

9.

Stresses that the issue of safety is of the utmost importance for the decommissioning of early closed units in the three NPPs in question; invites, therefore, the Council, the Commission and the Member States to bear that in mind in any future decisions concerning nuclear decommissioning in general and these three decommissioning programmes in particular; calls on the Commission to arrange for adequate coordination with the Member States and to establish precise timetables for the completion of the projects;

10.

Notes with concern that the detailed decommissioning plans of the three decommissioning programmes in question have not yet been finalised and, as a consequence, that there is insufficient information on the timetables, the costs of particular projects, and their sources of funding; urges therefore the relevant national bodies to finalise the plans and the Commission to report on this process and to provide a detailed long-term financial planning of the decommissioning projects; invites the Commission to clearly describe the scope of the EU financing required to accomplish these plans;

11.

Calls on the Commission to study ways of altering the EU's methods of financing decommissioning operations in view of the strategies employed in the Member States and their national administrative structures, and simplifying the rules on management of the funds in such a way that they do not affect the safety and security of the decommissioning operations;

12.

Notes the lack of a clear distribution of responsibility among the participants in the financing and the participants in the process of decommissioning; believes that the Commission should bear the main responsibility for the implementation of the EU assistance and that a joint management with the EBRD should be put in place;

13.

Considers that, for the purpose of awarding contracts, it would be desirable to apply a criterion of Community reciprocity for the benefit of European enterprises, with the application in particular of the principles set forth in Article 58 of Directive 2004/17/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating, inter alia, in the energy sector;

14.

Notes that the total financial assistance from the European Union to the three Member States until the end of 2013 comes to EUR 2 847,78 million; points out that, although differences among the NPPs exist, especially as regards fuel storage, in principle the programmes share the same technology; notes, however, that there are considerable differences in the allocated amounts: Ignalina (2 units) EUR 1 367 million; Bohunice (2 units): EUR 613 million; and Kozloduy (4 units) EUR 867,78 million;

15.

Notes, according to data available at the end of 2009, the differing situations among the Member States regarding the amounts disbursed:,Ignalina: total EUR 1 367 million, committed EUR 875,5 million (64,04 %), disbursed EUR 760,4 million (55,62 %); Bohunice: total EUR 613 million, committed EUR 363,72 million (59,33 %), disbursed EUR 157,87 million (25,75 %); Kozloduy: total EUR 867,78 million, committed EUR 567,78 million (65,42 %), disbursed EUR 363,149 million (41,84 %), mostly due to the different timing of the closure;

16.

Considers it necessary for the funds to be managed and their resources to be used with absolute transparency; recognises the importance of sound and transparent management of financial resources, with appropriate external supervision, to ensure fair competition on the energy market; recommends transparency and public participation in this field;

17.

Takes note of the following completed audits and evaluations: ‘Midterm Evaluation of the Decommissioning Assistance to Lithuania and Slovakia’ (2007); EC internal audits of all three programmes in 2007; European Court of Auditors (ECA) audits of CPMA in 2008 and 2009 regarding Ignalina; ECA audit for preparation of DAS 2008; ECA feasibility study in 2009; and notes the following ongoing activities: Communication from the Commission expected in early 2011; EC external financial audit for BIDSF, ECA; full performance audit for all three programmes;

18.

Considers that, taking into account the large amounts of money involved, the novelty regarding the utilisation of funds, the unknown factors which emerged throughout the process, and the numerous subsequent alterations, adaptations and allocation of additional amounts, the number and scope of the audits performed appear to be insufficient; regrets that the Commission's September 2007 Mid-term evaluation of the decommissioning assistance to Lithuania and Slovakia did not cover Bulgaria (which was already receiving assistance at the time);

19.

Regrets the lack of annual reports from the Commission to the European Parliament on the use of financial resources earmarked for the decommissioning of nuclear power plants; calls therefore on the Commission to monitor and report annually to the Parliament on the improvements in use of the funds and on the likelihood that the accumulated funds for the decommissioning of these specific units in the three NPPs will be absorbed over the next three years;

20.

Invites the Commission to conduct an analysis in order to ascertain that the possibility of allocating amounts for upcoming decommissioning projects until 2013 exists, especially since the decommissioning licences will be released for Bohunice in July 2011 and for Kozloduy at the end of 2011 and the end of 2012;

21.

Invites the Commission to provide comparative information on the implementation of the initial and revised schedules for different stages of the decommissioning processes, as well as on measures in the energy and social domains, prior to any further allocation of EU funds;

22.

Invites the Commission to report on the particular improvements stemming from the establishment of a Member State Management Committee in 2007 to assist it in the implementation of the assistance programmes, and to give an account of the procedural changes since that time;

23.

Notes that the ECA audit is still ongoing; suggests that this should help to reveal the objectives of the use of the funds and their effectiveness, as well as viable proposals for the future, and assess the additional funding required in order to perform the decommissioning; suggests that, being a full performance audit, it should clarify the following:

24.

Suggests that, as regards future activities to be financed from EU allocated amounts within the 2007-2013 period, further issues need clarifying:

25.

Notes with concern the lack of an EU team of coordinators and experts of all three projects, which would have enabled the decommissioning programme to be treated as a whole package based on EU experience, thus enabling synergies between the three cases;

26.

Stresses that enhanced coordination between the three programmes is needed in order to ensure better planning of activities and sharing of experience gained amongst them; considers that the European Union as a whole can also benefit from this experience as reactors are taken out of service at the end of their economic lives; therefore invites all parties involved to develop and collect best decommissioning practices and to ensure the best use of the experience and data gained amongst the other Member States with nuclear power plants;

27.

Calls on the Commission to set up a Coordination Team, which should be in charge of:

28.

Notes that the polluter-pays principle should be applied to the financing of decommissioning operations and that nuclear operators should ensure that adequate financial resources to cover future decommissioning costs are set aside during the productive life of nuclear installations;

29.

Notes that the early closure of the reactors prevented the planned accumulation of needed amounts in the respective national funds designed to cover all costs associated with the decommissioning of the plants;

30.

Calls on the Commission, taking into account the various strategies employed by the Member States, to explore possible ways of harmonising approaches to the funding of decommissioning in the EU in order to ensure timely accumulation of the necessary financial resources without compromising the safety and security of the decommissioning process;

31.

Welcomes the fact that most of the Ignalina programme's projects for energy efficiency and securing of the electricity supply are currently under implementation or have already been implemented;

32.

Notes with concern that key waste infrastructure management projects (spent fuel storage and waste repository project) have experienced serious delays that incurred additional costs with respect to original estimates; notes that available slack in the system is almost exhausted and that delays may start to impinge upon the critical path for the whole decommissioning plan, with a commensurate increase in cost; calls on the Commission to report on the results of the reassessment of the project timeline;

33.

Notes that a large part of the funds was allocated to energy projects, that considerable financing is still required for decommissioning and that national funds are not sufficient to cover this: the State Ignalina NPP Decommissioning Fund has so far accumulated just over EUR 100 million (while the technical costs of decommissioning alone range from EUR 987 million to EUR 1 300 million), and a significant proportion of that has been used on non-decommissioning projects; calls for appropriate measures to be taken in this respect, particularly by the Member State;

34.

Welcomes the progress on the Bohunice programme;

35.

Notes that while Community assistance is projected for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, in particular V1 reactors, as well as for security of supply, the national Nuclear Fund did not set aside any specifically earmarked source of funding for the ongoing A1 decommissioning project;

36.

Notes that some decommissioning projects, such as the reconstruction of the area's physical protection system, the historical waste treatment project and construction of the interim storage of RAW at the Bohunice site, have experienced significant delays in their implementation; urges the Commission and the Slovakian side to take steps to prevent the delays and to avoid jeopardising the scheduled progress of decommissioning work;

37.

Welcomes the overall good technical and financial performance of the Kozloduy programme, and the review of the decommissioning strategy for Units 1 to 4, which was changed from an initial deferred dismantling strategy to an immediate continuous dismantling strategy;

38.

Notes with concern a rather high share of energy projects in the distribution of allocated public funds; calls on the Commission to monitor the implementation of the remaining energy projects and to report on the results; calls for an increase in the proportion of ‘Decommissioning and Waste’ projects in the remaining period of the Kozloduy programme;

39.

Stresses the need for comprehensive administrative coordination between the State Enterprise for Radioactive Waste (SERAW) and Kozloduy NPP, now responsible for Units 1-2 and Units 3-4 respectively; invites the Bulgarian side to analyse and promptly implement necessary improvement measures with regard to this divided management, and/or to bring together Units 1-4 under a common management;

40.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission, and to the governments of Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia.