Fri, May 20, 2011
PRAGUE - The prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia said here Thursday that they supported additional security stress tests for nuclear power stations in EU countries.
The two prime ministers met prior to a meeting scheduled here to discuss a proposal by EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger to conduct rigorous security checks on EU nuclear reactors. This was in response to Japan's nuclear disaster, which was caused by a mega earthquake in March.
At a press conference held after the meeting with his Slovak counterpart, Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas said the issue of nuclear security should not become a matter of political infighting, and related discussions should be held by experts only.
"We cannot allow a politicization of this problem," Necas said.
He also said every country has the right to decide which energy source it would use. "The Czech Republic will continue to use nuclear energy," he said.
Both Czechs and Slovaks have been using nuclear power stations successfully for decades, though they were often criticized by Austrian and German green activists.
Now the EU is considering conducting tests on power stations to see whether they are safe against terrorist attacks. However, Necas rejected this idea. "I cannot imagine that the criteria (for the tests) should include the terrorist threat," he said.
Necas argued that because the results of such tests would be made public, would-be terrorists could misuse that information.
