Euradwaste '08 - EU Bookshop - Europa

the decision making process. The sequence "decide – announce – defend" was therefore
mostly followed by "abandon".
The Waste Eurobarometer indeed revealed that almost 60% of the EU citizens want to be
directly consulted and to participate in the decision making process if a repository would be
built near their home.
That is why the implementation of geological disposal requires modern governance concepts,
building on a step-wise approach and early involvement of local stakeholders.
Such modern governance concepts have laid the foundation of the Finnish and Swedish approach.
Finally, let's address the issue of Political Commitment.
All so far successful programs have demonstrated one important issue: at the very start of
the Radioactive Waste Management process there must strong political commitment and
clear political decisions.
This should be followed by the transposition of the political decisions into a legal, regulatory
and organisational framework and all other steps required realising a repository.
So we are talking a top-down approach. What we see in practice is quite often the contrary.
Organisations created in principle to identify solutions work in a political vacuum, which I
imagine must be a frustrating task.
This has to change. Politics has to respond to the expectations expressed by the citizens, as
seen in the Eurobarometer poll.
4. EU initiatives
What is presently done at EU level?
Well, here we see at present three important initiatives which complement each other:
First of all, the European Nuclear Energy Forum, short "ENEF", was established last
year by the Commission following a European Summit dedicated to an EU Low Carbon
Energy Strategy. The Forum is jointly hosted by the Czech Republic and Slovakia and aims
at a broad discussion among all relevant stakeholders on the opportunities and risks of nuclear
energy.
Three ENEF working groups discuss opportunities, transparency and of course also the
risks of nuclear energy.
It goes without saying that Radioactive Waste Management forms an important topic here
and a dedicated subgroup is at present developing a 'Roadmap to successful implementation
of geological disposal in the European Union, in particular highlighting the essential elements
for the implementation of geological disposal as well as recommendations for national
roadmaps and actions at EU level.
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