Stop Temelin, bitte

Not even two weeks after the German government's clear call to the Czech Republic to completely abandon the project and permanently close the Temelin nuclear power plant due to serious safety concerns, the government in Prague is not making any announcements. One analyst described this silence as - splendid passivity. Many here think that Prague's resounding silence at Berlin's request is more a consequence of the shock due to the "unexpected" strengthening of the anti-fundamentalist sentiment in Europe, because Austria gained a strong and influential ally in Germany, than the inability of the Czech Republic to offer the Germans rather meager evidence of the complete safety of its nuclear power plant, which is known in the world as a unique hybrid of old Soviet and modern American technology. In their request, the Germans wrote that the shortcomings of Temelin are increased vibrations of the turbine, problems with the reactor vessel, that the pipelines, steam and water exchangers are too close to each other, that the valves in the non-nuclear part of the plant are unsafe...

To make matters worse, in May of this year, Temelin was stopped after a short test run, in order to check and overhaul a lot of things, which is quite normal with power plants of this type in the testing phase, but that work break stretched from one to more than two months. Temelin is still out of order today.

And then, after the letter from Berlin, things began to spin quite dramatically - the very next day, the shares of the Czech Energy Institute, the state-owned company and the nominal owner of Temelin, fell by 20 percent, and the index of the entire Prague Stock Exchange fell by 5,5 percent. . The purchase and sale of shares of the Czech energy giant, until a few days ago one of the most stable domestic companies, is temporarily limited.

Some anti-nuclear lobbies in Europe announce that they will fight for a ban on the import of electricity from the Czech Republic, in Germany and Austria they have already done so. Even without Temelin, the Czech Republic had a considerable surplus of electricity which it sold around Europe...

PRE LETTERS: The reader of "Vremen" will remember that in the very south of the Czech Republic in October of last year, after 15 years of construction and spending about three billion dollars, the Temelin nuclear power plant was put into trial operation, barely sixty kilometers from the Austrian and the same distance from the German border. . The former "genius idea of ​​Comrade Gustav Husak and the CK" underwent major changes in the finale after the "plush revolution", so in Temelin, apart from turbines and some other facilities, the latest Westinghouse technology was installed instead of the "most modern Soviet one".

At almost the same moment, sharp protests began from neighboring Austria, which considers Temelin to be a very unsafe and dangerous technological compilation, and then direct actions began - the borders to the Czech Republic were blocked, in some Viennese political competition with Haidar's right, many did not hesitate. to remind the Czechs that Austria will also participate in the decision on the enlargement of the European Union and that their voice will be heard when the Czech Republic's accession is on the agenda. It has been threatened that they will no longer buy electricity from a country that treats its neighbors so carelessly, if it does not already take care of the safety of its own citizens.

Czech politicians, on the other hand, dealt with Austria's demands as they knew and knew how - many claim that they did it clumsily, poorly and without strong arguments, and those "about national pride" or "about internationally recognized sovereign rights" should definitely be counted among those states" that the extreme left and the extreme right in the Czech Republic are so fond of mentioning. The government in Prague persistently offered all its evidence on nuclear plant safety, as well as the results of research by international expert groups, admitting at the same time that nuclear plant safety systems in Europe differ, and that common criteria in the EU do not yet exist. Austria, on the other hand, demanded that the entire Temelin project be investigated by an international impartial commission of experts, with the obligation that the position of that commission must be respected, which Prague refused. But, when a direct, crisis telephone line between Prague and Vienna was established towards the end of 2000, it seemed that the misunderstandings about Temelin became the subject of discussions, rather than new confrontations.

EVEN HIT: In occasional periods of colder relations and somewhat harsher words with Austria, some people from Prague knew how to remember another "argument" - and why Temelin was not protested by the Germans, but only by Vienna. He asked, but he didn't ask - in Germany, 70 percent of citizens have already declared against nuclear power plants, so Gerhard Schröder's government was forced to legalize the end of the construction of new nuclear plants and announce the end of all current ones within 20 years. In Germany, the Greens are a serious and influential party and their suggestions cannot be answered with - the world will not move like a bicycle, with feet, solar panels are not enough, wind-powered mills bring a weak char.

Some cooler heads in the Czech Republic are now warning - one must listen to the arguments of others, environmental and other groups cannot be blamed for every suggestion from the world as "agents and mercenaries of foreign powers", an offensive to open up Czech society, especially the government, as well as a public offer indeed of all parameters about the safety of Temelin, because the Czech citizens, who are the least talked about in all these disputes, will know whether they are in any danger from that creation or not. It is good, but it is not enough that the President of the Parliament Vaclav Klaus, at the recent opening of a large exhibition of Czech masters of Cubism in Austria, said that from that moment on, the Czech Republic will be known to the Austrian public for its great painters, and not only for Temelin.

(Special for "Vreme" from Prague)