BRATISLAVA, August 21, (SITA) -- The Nuclear Regulatory Authority (UJD) lost a lawsuit with Greenpeace Slovakia regarding the completion of the third and fourth units of the Nuclear Power Plant Mochovce (EMO). The Supreme Court has cancelled the UJD decision from four years ago in which it rejected the participation of Greenpeace in the proceedings on change in construction before completion regarding the two units at Mochovce. The Supreme Court has thus changed the verdict of the Regional Court in Bratislava from May of last year, which ruled in favor of UJD. "We will proceed in a way to respect the decision of the Supreme Court as well as provisions of the Aarhus Convention ," responded Zuzana Hostovecka of the UJD Office for SITA news agency.
The completion of Mochovce is not compromised. "The decision of the Supreme Court does not affect the process of completion of the two nuclear units at Mochovce since the building permit has not been revoked," said Stanislav Jurikovic, the spokesman for the Economy Minister, who was commenting on the decision. According to Martin Magal, a lawyer of the company Allen & Overy Bratislava, in its decision the Supreme Court accepted that Greenpeace had the right to participate in the appeals proceedings in the matter of confirming the validity of the building permit for the completion of the third and fourth units at Mochovce. However, it did not find that the arguments Greenpeace raised against the completion itself were relevant. "On the contrary, it stressed that no law of the Slovak Republic or international conventions grant a legal right to civil society organizations and the public concerned that their comments would be complied with. Substantive comments by Greenpeace and other associations have already been examined by UJD in 2010 and were evaluated as unfounded. Construction work may thus continue until UJD issues another decision during the appeals proceedings,” Magal said to SITA.
"In further proceedings, UJD will reconsider the matter and decide with Greenpeace involved, whereby it will be required to deal with all relevant objections," says the decision of the Supreme Court, which is available to SITA. The Supreme Court has accepted the assertion of Greenpeace that any authorization, including a construction permit relating to a nuclear power plant falls under authorization procedures covered by the Aarhus Convention. According to this convention, member states must ensure "timely and effective public participation" in such authorization procedures. "We wish to repeatedly draw attention to the fact that no law of the Slovak Republic or the Aarhus Convention grants a legal entitlement for civil society organizations and the involved public to have their comments made in assessing the environmental impact complied with," said Supreme Court.
UJD now plans to issue a new decision in the matter, whereby it will consider all relevant comments of the parties to the proceedings. "As soon as it is technically possible, we will provide to Greenpeace access to documentation on the construction of the nuclear power plant, which at the moment has over one hundred thousand pages," said Hostovecka. The authority is now also deciding on "excluding a deferral effect". A decision to exclude a deferral effect would mean that the decision by which UJD permitted the continued construction of the third and fourth units at EMO would remain enforceable and construction could continue, explained Hostovecka.
According to Greenpeace, the decision of the Supreme Court can have a significant impact on the completion of EMO. “The Supreme Court, by invalidating for unlawfulness the decision of UJD on the construction permission and a change of construction before completion, the investor is deprived of the key permission required to continue the completion of the third and fourth units at EMO,“ believes director of Greenpeace Slovakia Juraj Rizman. In his opinion, UJD should now notify Slovenske Elektrarne to immediately stop construction work on the completion. “The whole process of issuing a building permit should start all over,” Rizman concluded.
Slovenske Elektrarne does not want to comment on the matter, since they were not a party to the dispute. "In the construction of units 3 and 4 of EMO, we have always acted in accordance with the decisions of state authorities and laws of the Slovak Republic. We will wait for further decisions UJD and we are ready to provide necessary assistance in maintaining domestic and international nuclear safety requirements," Slovenske Elektrarne spokeswoman Janka Burdova responded for SITA.
Completion of the third and fourth units at EMO should eventually cost 3.8 billion euros. Slovenske Elektrarne should connect the third unit to the grid at the end of 2014 and fourth in 2015. Installed capacity of the new nuclear units at Mochovce will be about a thousand megawatts.
Slovenske Elektrarne, in which Enel holds a 66 percent stake, officially began with the completion of Mochovce on November 3, 2008. Slovakia’s dominant electricity producer officially signed contracts with the main contractors of the completion of Mochovce, with the Czech company Skoda Jaderne Strojirenstvi [Nuclear Engineering], the Russian firm Atomstrojexport, Slovak enterprises VUJE, Enseco, IS Kosice, and the Italian company Enel Ingegneria & Innovazione in early June 2009.
