Press releases
19.March 2009 - 00:00
A review of the Kozloduy agreement is welcomeConference theme: Strengthening Our EconomyFor A Europe of Responsibility And Stability
Finnish MEP, Eija-Riitta Korhola, said today that Bulgaria’s closed Units at Kozloduy could and should play an important environmental role as well as an Economic one. Commenting on the conference theme, she said she fully supports the call made by her colleague, Struan Stevenson, for a review of the Kozloduy closure agreement that was a condition of Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union. “Of course it is a nonsense to ignore the possibility to re-open these units given the economic decline that is uppermost in our thoughts today but I have been calling for a review of the agreement over many years and for many reasons.”
Mrs Korhola, an outspoken member of the European Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change, Internal Market and Industry/Energy Committees, has raised several parliamentary questions on the subject since being elected in 1999. During the Finnish Presidency of the European Union in 2006, she also wrote a letter to the EU’s Energy Minister urging a full-scope review of that agreement against all current criteria. “Though I did get responses, I have to say I did not get any answers,” she continued. Today we are focussing on the economic situation but, however long that may last, my concern to protect our environment will continue without change. Quite simply, nuclear power offers the only large scale clean and reliable energy source and at competitive prices. So with or without an economic downturn, replacing Kozloduy’s closed units with fossil fuel, especially Bulgaria’s only indigenous alternative: lignite, is a crime against the planet.”
Commenting on the fact that the closure agreement is now a part of Bulgaria’s Accession Treaty, Mrs Korhola said: “Well I put environmental damage as more important than changing this or that document. Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? Simply the means has to be found, followed and completed.”
Eija-Riitta Korhola is a conservative party MEP for Finland. She is Vice-Chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and Substitute Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
Finnish MEP, Eija-Riitta Korhola, said today that Bulgaria’s closed Units at Kozloduy could and should play an important environmental role as well as an Economic one. Commenting on the conference theme, she said she fully supports the call made by her colleague, Struan Stevenson, for a review of the Kozloduy closure agreement that was a condition of Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union. “Of course it is a nonsense to ignore the possibility to re-open these units given the economic decline that is uppermost in our thoughts today but I have been calling for a review of the agreement over many years and for many reasons.”
Mrs Korhola, an outspoken member of the European Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change, Internal Market and Industry/Energy Committees, has raised several parliamentary questions on the subject since being elected in 1999. During the Finnish Presidency of the European Union in 2006, she also wrote a letter to the EU’s Energy Minister urging a full-scope review of that agreement against all current criteria. “Though I did get responses, I have to say I did not get any answers,” she continued. Today we are focussing on the economic situation but, however long that may last, my concern to protect our environment will continue without change. Quite simply, nuclear power offers the only large scale clean and reliable energy source and at competitive prices. So with or without an economic downturn, replacing Kozloduy’s closed units with fossil fuel, especially Bulgaria’s only indigenous alternative: lignite, is a crime against the planet.”
Commenting on the fact that the closure agreement is now a part of Bulgaria’s Accession Treaty, Mrs Korhola said: “Well I put environmental damage as more important than changing this or that document. Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? Simply the means has to be found, followed and completed.”
Eija-Riitta Korhola is a conservative party MEP for Finland. She is Vice-Chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and Substitute Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.