The European Commission called yesterday on Slovakia’s main electricity producer to step up safety at its planned extension of a Soviet-era nuclear power plant, slammed by Greenpeace as a hazardous unit.
Slovenske Elektrarne, 66 percent-owned by Italian energy group Enel and 22 percent by the Slovak state, wants to complete two new reactors by 2012 and 2013 at the Mochovce plant in western Slovakia. Under the Euratom Treaty, the European Commission has to give a non-binding opinion on such works.
The Commission said that the new reactors should be designed to withstand an impact from an “external source” such as “a malevolent small aircraft.” The country’s left-dominated government is keen to see the reactors completed as soon as possible.
(KATHIMERINI, 16/07/2008)