mr president as rapporteur on investments in energy infrastructure and shadow rapporteur on security of gas supply i am very sensitive to issues of energy security
i think europe has a key role to play in this field
as a romanian mep i have even more interest in this particular issue of the kozloduy nuclear plant
being on the border of my country it has long been a matter of preoccupation in romania for obvious environmental reasons
the kozloduy power plant is situated four kilometres from the river danube and one hundred and fifty kilometres from bucharest
according to international experts the plant does not have any protective cover and there are major risks of radioactive leakages into the soil and the water table
i believe europe has a responsibility to help and facilitate its decommissioning and we have to ensure that sufficient funding is made available to this project as this is crucial to keep safety up to high standards to ensure the necessary expertise and implement international best practices
decommissioning and dismantling should be done according to very strict rules and standards otherwise it could pose a security threat to the whole region
this is why i fully support this proposal and our commitment to allocate an additional eur three hundred million to this project
let me also remind you that the european parliament took a strong stance a few months ago on this dossier allocating the first eur seventy-five million in the twenty ten budget
nevertheless i think we should be intransigent regarding transparency in the use of european funds
so far the commission has been quite dissatisfied with the information on decommissioning received from bulgaria
the monitoring of the funds needs to be strict
this is why i believe that the european commission should first perform a specific evaluation to assess the strengths and weaknesses of past projects in order to improve funds programming together with the ebrd for the next funding period twenty ten twenty thirteen
we have tabled several amendments requiring the bulgarian authorities to present a proper national strategy outlining long-term objectives in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors as a prerequisite to the eur one hundred and twenty million envelope
