K2R4 Nuclear Plant Opposition Leader Murdered
in Kiev
October 3, 2002
KIEV, Ukraine – A month ago a civic group filed
a lawsuit against the Ukrainian government to stop construction of two nuclear
power plants at Rivne and Khmelnytskyi, calling the projects illegal. On Tuesday its vice-Chairman was gunned down
in Kiev.
An unidentified man shot and killed Ruslan Syniavskyi, 44, late Monday
at the entrance of his apartment building in downtown Kiev, the Interior
Ministry's department in the capital said. Police didn't provide other details.
The Interfax news agency said that the
assailant shot several times in an attempt to rob Syniavsky. "It's very doubtful that an ordinary
thief carries a gun," said Oleh Sadanets, a representative of Syniavskyi's
Public Control organization. "We consider that this (killing) was linked
to his activity in the organization... four shots cannot be a simple
accident."
Syniavksy was the vice-Chairman of Public
Control, a non-governmental, environmental organization. The group is suing the Ukrainian government
in a Kiev district court demanding a halt to the plants' construction. The
group claims that the State Nuclear Regulatory Committee broke the law by not
conducting adequate public hearings before providing a license to the state
nuclear company Energoatom to construct the new power stations.
A judge agreed in August to hear Public
Control's case after the same court denied a lawsuit by six representatives of
an environmental group against Energoatom, claiming completion of the nuclear
plants posed an ecological threat to the country. Alexei Tolkachov, a law student who is the chairperson of the
Kiev-based Public Committee for State Security – a take-off of the Soviet-era
KGB, or Committee for State Security – led the unsuccessful lawsuit.
Ukrainian law requires the court to order
construction to stop pending review of the group's petition and a decision.
Court officials would not confirm whether a stop order has been issued, and
Energoatom has denied that it had received any court order to stop construction
resulting from the lawsuit.
Soviet-designed reactors are currently
operating at Rivne and Khmelnytskyi and the disputed new reactors are about 85%
complete. Ukraine negotiated to build the new reactors to compensate for the
electricity lost when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was closed in 2000.
Currently, Ukraine operates four nuclear power
plants with 13 reactors, nine of which are now working. The reactors are
frequently shut down for malfunctions or scheduled repairs.
K2R4 Loan Hurdles
On 13 December 2000 the
European Commission approved a Euratom loan of US$585 million for the Khmelnytskyi
and Rivne plant expansions, subject to the confirmation by the EBRD (European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development) of the effectiveness of their 7 December
2000 decision on a US$215 million loan for the same project. As all conditions
were fulfilled, the EBRD and the Commission decision was ready to be confirmed
and the loans were to be granted in early December 2001.
But on 28 November 2001, some days before
signing the contracts with the EBRD and European Commission, the Ukrainian
Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh requested additional discussions on certain loan
conditions that Ukraine considered unachievable, and consequently refused to
sign the EBRD loan contract.
At the request of
Ukraine, a joint Working Group (WG) was established to explore solutions that
would address the issues of their concern and render the project acceptable.
The WG met biweekly until early February 2002 to discuss project cost, the
Project Financing Plan, electricity tariffs, the Decommissioning Fund and
nuclear liabilities and insurance. Substantial work remains to be done before a
solution is fully defined.
One of the conditions
which the EBRD required is an immediate hike in electricity rates, which would
have meant a 30% rise in consumer rates. The issue of increasing electricity
rates played an important role in the move on 28 November 2001 not to sign the
contract. To agree to such an increase at that moment was impossible in the
run-up to national elections scheduled for March 2002. According to Prime
Minister Kinakh, the negotiations in the WG had led to agreement on reduction
of the project costs and on mitigation of the bank's requirement for increasing
electricity rates. The required hike in electricity rates could be smaller if
the total project costs could be lowered.
Assuming the project is satisfactorily adjusted
at technical level by the WG, it will have to be re-approved by all parties, a
process that will require full political support. In any case, a decision is
not expected until after the Ukrainian parliamentary elections of March. Currently, due to parliamentary
disagreements and presidential scandals it is expected that agreements will not
be announced until much later this fall.
Sources: Associated Press, and the online
magazine Korrespondent, and CEE Bankwatch
For more information, contact NIRS WISE Ukraine
at akul@svitonline.com or see our
website at http://nonukes.narod.ru