May 1, 2004 - On Saturday, 1 May, 10 countries are joining the European Union, amid great fanfare. Their membership of this exclusive alliance will, they hope, bring prosperity and stability born out of economic, political and social integration with their neighbours.

What has received less attention is that they will also be joining the world's biggest nuclear club. For the EU is bound by a commitment to develop a "powerful nuclear industry" capable of providing the electricity required to raise the standard of living of its citizens.

This commitment is based on the 47-year-old Euratom treaty, which many say is anachronistic, contradictory and should be scrapped. Yet the treaty, which established the European Atomic Energy Community, is unlikely to disappear any time soon. In fact it is the only pre-existing treaty that will be retained under the nascent European Constitution.

Nuclear reactors in the European Union

Europe's decision to maintain the status quo on nuclear power highlights the confusion at the heart of its policy on nuclear energy - a confusion that will now intensify.

For while the five new members that do not have nuclear power stations (Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Malta and Cyprus) will be legally obliged to promote the industry's development, some of the others will face the opposite problem.

Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania and the Czech Republic rely on nuclear power to meet their energy demands, yet two of these nations have already come under intense pressure from EU countries to shut down their old Soviet-style reactors to ensure that they do not trigger another Chernobyl-scale accident.

Old reactors

Euratom was born in 1957, when nuclear power's status as the technology of the future was unquestioned. Over the years it has funded over 55 billion euros worth of research into nuclear power, as well as lending hundreds of millions of euros to help build or improve nuclear plants.

As a result the EU is the world's leading nuclear generator. The enlarged EU operates 156 reactors that produce 32 per cent of its electricity, a higher proportion than in North America, Japan or Russia.

But most of the reactors operating in Europe are old, having been churning out power for an average of about 22 years. And since the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine 18 years ago this week, many countries have lost their enthusiasm for the technology. Only France and Finland are contemplating new reactors, while Germany, Sweden, Belgium and Spain are planning to phase them out. Italy has already done so.

This has rendered Euratom "a political fossil that has lost most of its raison d'être", says Benjamin Görlach of the Institute for International and European Environmental Policy in Berlin.

Antony Froggatt, a European energy analyst in London, compares the role of Euratom to that of the Soviet Union, which sponsored nuclear power behind the iron curtain, saying "accession countries will be rightly wary".

Technology neutral

Europe's most anti-nuclear nation, Austria, is campaigning to replace Euratom with a "technology-neutral" treaty that does not favour one method of providing energy. It is backed by Ireland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, the European Parliament and around 100 environmental groups. But any decision to abandon Euratom will not come easily.

The nuclear industry supports the treaty, and while nuclear nations like Britain acknowledge that it "would benefit from reform", there is huge disagreement over what that reform should be.

As well as promoting nuclear power, Euratom regulates it by laying down safety standards to protect the health of workers and the public. It is this conflict of interest that has dogged the EU's attempts to close down old Soviet-style reactors in the accession nations, say critics of the treaty, such as Friends of the Earth Europe.

To reduce the risk of accidents, the EU encouraged Lithuania to close down its Ignalina 1 and 2 reactors, and Slovakia to close its two reactors, Bohunice 1 and 2. But despite an investment of 355 million euros by the EU, and a promise of another 375 million euros, all four reactors are still running.

Ignalina 1 is due to close by 2005, but the country's regulatory agency, Vatesi, insisted last week that this would not be possible for safety reasons. Ignalina 2 is now due to close in 2009, while Bohunice 1 and 2 are due to be shut down in 2006 and 2008, dates that could yet be further postponed.