LIB DEMS: NUCLEAR IS NOT ANY KIND OF OPTION

4.04.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 20th May 2007

British Liberal Democrat MEPs have voted against a resolution of the European Parliament which seeks to boost investment in Europe's nuclear industry. While the Liberal Democrats won an amendment calling for the revision of the 50 year old Euratom Treaty, they opposed clauses which encouraged the promotion of nuclear power as part of the European Union's common energy policy.

Andrew Duff MEP, Leader of the Liberal Democrat European Parliamentary Party, said:

"Parliament will have to take greater care not simply to back nuclear as part of the effort to cut carbon emissions. Of course nuclear fission will have to remain part of Europe's energy mix for some years to come while new science and technology comes on stream. Some member states will remain keen on more nuclear power, while others remain fiercely opposed. It is right that the EU should allow such diversity. But the Parliament has a duty to remind all member states that the problem of nuclear waste remains unresolved, and cannot be disregarded.

"The EU's Euratom Treaty has led the European nuclear industry to develop the highest world standards of health, security and non-proliferation. But the treaty must soon be modernised so as to put the nuclear energy firmly within the wider context of EU environmental policy. And the democratic accountability that we have in other areas of the single market must be extended into EU policy-making on nuclear energy".