Welcome to the Union

摘要

Seen in the context of the past decade, the entry of 10 new member states to the European Union (EU), which took place on 1 May, has proved nothing like the disaster for the nuclear industry that was once feared. This is partly because the problems presented by the incoming countries through their reliance on Russian-designed reactors with major safety defects were identified and acted upon as far back as 1992. A number of ambitious and broad-ranging programmes have been adopted in the past decade either to upgrade the plants to acceptable international safety levels or to agree on dates for their closure. There remain a number of unsolved problems - principally perhaps the extent to which the new member countries will be able to exploit Euratom loans in order to comply with EU nuclear safety legislation - and none of these countries has felt it necessary to forswear the use of nuclear energy in either the medium or long term. Some of the new members, such as the Czech Republic, may even be able to exploit the EU's energy liberalisation directives to expand their exports of energy to other EU states, though in general the newcomers, according to some experts, will probably want to avoid giving the impression they have surplus energy lest this invite closer scrutiny of their nuclear reactors.