Green MEPs, Daniel Cohn-Bendit (France) and Rebecca Harms (Germany), today urged the Italian population to vote ‘si’ in Sunday’s referendum on nuclear energy, claiming that a yes vote rejecting nuclear power as an energy option for Italy, would start a “snowball effect†across the rest of Europe.
Cohn-Bendit pointed out that the referendum was the first in Europe on this issue and urged the Italian people to vote in order to give all European citizens a better future.
Harms outlined how a majority of European citizens now opposed nuclear energy – a view that had grown since the Fukishima tragedy in Japan earlier this year. And she listed all the countries rejecting nuclear power. It was not only Germany who had recently moved to phase out nuclear power but a whole host of countries had never chosen the nuclear route, including Ireland, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Switzerland and Belgium.
Poland is also due to hold a referendum and France is debating the issue afresh. With elections due in France, Germany and Italy in the next three years, the Green MEPs argued that we could shortly reach a position where there are three governments “at the heart of Europe†adopting an anti-nuclear stance and that this would send a “strong message†to nations around the world.
The MEPs suggested there were sound fiscal reasons to reject nuclear power. It would cost Italy at least 700 million Euros to earthquake “proof†any nuclear installations. Fundamentally, the country’s topological and geological make up made it inherently unsuitable for nuclear power plants.
Moreover, Cohn-Bendit highlighted the “inherent contradiction†at the heart of UK policy on nuclear energy. Its position of including nuclear power in the mix for future energy provision was predicated on such development being privately funded and not involving public funding. The Green MEP claimed this was impossible to do. Experience in Japan showed that even with private investors, public funding was still required and frankly, the UK Government did not have the money to do this in the current financial climate.
While the fiscal issue is a key one, it is also clear that the UK is travelling in the wrong direction on this important issue from its fellow EU members. The future is bright, it would appear, and it does not include nuclear.
So long as the Italians do indeed vote si on Sunday.
– blogged from the European Parliament in Strasbourg –
#1 by Doug Daniel on June 9, 2011 - 11:58 am
“While the fiscal issue is a key one, it is also clear that the UK is travelling in the wrong direction on this important issue from its fellow EU members.”
Westminster, with it’s 19th century colonial mindset, at complete odds with the rest of Europe? Who would have thought it!
This just highlights how ridiculous it is for the unionist parties to continue with a pro-nuclear stance in Scotland. Major countries with less renewables potential than us are going anti-nuclear, so why would parties like Labour have us building more nuclear power stations?
France is the country we really need on board. Can’t see it, though!
#2 by Alec Macph on June 11, 2011 - 10:40 am
The phrasing of the question is awkward, with a potential double negative. Far better:
… d’ya wanta to keep the bigga nuclear energia, oi mamma! Si or bunga-bunga? [1]
>> Westminster, with it’s 19th century colonial mindset, at complete odds with the rest of Europe? Who would have thought it!
Are you aware of what France has been up-to in West and Central Africa over the past few decades? Or nuclear energy for that matter.
~alec
[1] Italians aint a race, so this aint racism.
#3 by The Burd on June 11, 2011 - 11:03 am
On the France thing, yes vaguely aware of the new modern imperialism which China is wiping the West’s floor on. But keen to hear more!
#4 by Alec Macph on June 11, 2011 - 11:19 am
Cant about Western Imperialism lost its meaning decades ago, and arguably started to wain in 1919 when Japan received German Pacific possessions; definitely going into a nose-dive when the crack Japanese bicycle squad appeared out of the Malaysian jungles and took Singapore in 1942.
That it derives from the views of men like Lenin who were prosecuting their own wars of conquest across Central Asia, alone, means that it should be filed under “Double Standards, Hypocrisy”.
It’s become simply a crutch to use rather than offer sensible debate, just as with the knee-jerk response that Westminster is supposedly a colonial institution. I think Mike was mistaking it for St Mary’s Gate.
And to see PRC policy as it really should be the last word on this dead concept. This is not to say that PRC policy could not ultimately lead to a really funny shoot-out.
As for what France has been getting-up-to, this is common knowledge for anyone who doesn’t think everything happens only in an Anglophone medium! Suffice to say, contrary to popular perception, the French military _can_ fight.
~alec
#5 by Alec Macph on June 11, 2011 - 12:14 pm
Not Mike, the bloke with a spade on his head.