Slovenia was caught in a nuclear controversy yesterday after admitting that it wrongly told other countries that a water leak that forced it to shut down a nuclear reactor was only an exercise.
The shutdown on Wednesday led to the European Union raising a Europe-wide radiation alert for the first time since the system was put in place in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster 22 years ago.
After detecting a loss in the reactor’s cooling system midafternoon Wednesday, Slovenian authorities decided to manually shut the plant down, and correctly alerted the European Commission – but erroneously told neighboring countries the incident was an exercise. The Slovenian government apologized yesterday but insisted there was no safety threat from the water coolant problem, and that the reactor at Krsko, 120 miles (75 kilometers) east of the capital, Ljubljana, would be fixed within days.
Slovenian Environment Minister Janez Podobnik told other EU environment ministers he was sorry for the mistaken alert at a meeting in Luxembourg. Neighboring Italy said the incident was now “closed” but Austria, which also has a border with Slovenia, was furious at the mix-up, which Slovenian authorities blamed on using the wrong paperwork.
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said he would demand answers of Slovenia, but added, “I prefer to have an unnecessary alert, than to have too few alerts.”
(KATHIMERINI, 06/06/2008)