EU to contribute ECU 100 million to Chernobyl shut-down
The European Commission has formally confirmed its intention to commit ECU 100 million towards the final shut down of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, at a G7 Chernobyl Pledging Conference held in New York, USA, on 20 November 1997. This amount, which will come from the EU's TACIS programme, doubles the EU contribution to Chernobyl to date. Over the past three years, the Commission has funded a number of studies which have confirmed that the present cover over the destroyed Chernobyl reactor - the "sarcophagus" - is unsafe and in danger of collapse. These studies have, more importantly, produced a proposal for transforming the present shelter into a safe and stable system. The proposal - the Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP) - was agreed by the Group of Seven leading industrial nations and the European Commission and the Ukraine. The creation of a Chernobyl Shelter Fund was subsequently endorsed at the G7 Denver Summit. The cost of the Plan - which includes stabilizing the existing structure and placing a new environmentally tight cover over the existing shelter - could be around ECU 654 million. The ECU 100 million donation from the EU, which is presently being reviewed by the European Parliament, will raise the amount committed to work on the Chernobyl site to around ECU 165 million. A further ECU 40 million has already been committed in direct support of the decision by the Government of the Ukraine to permanently close the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant by the year 2000.
Countries
Ukraine