CROATIA THE ONLY COUNTRY TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISION FIRST AND THEN TRY TO PROVE THE SITE IS SUITABLE

DVOR, MAY 23 /SRNA/ - For the municipality of Dvor, it would be best not to receive any compensation for radioactive waste, and Croatia is the only country that first made a political decision on where to store such waste and is now trying to prove that the location is suitable, Dvor Mayor Nikola Arbutina told SRNA.

Referring to the site in Trgovska Gora, where a radioactive waste repository is planned, Arbutina pointed out that the environmental impact study is currently underway and that the Croatian Ministry of Environmental Protection and Green Transition has officially appointed participants in the procedure who will serve on the commission that will review the study before it is published. “The Municipality of Dvor is obliged to participate. I appointed the head of the Administrative Department, but in the meantime, he resigned, and until a new appointment is made, I will take over that role as mayor,” Arbutina said. Once the study is published, Arbutina believes that experts in Croatia and BiH will, for the first time, have the opportunity to express their views. “BiH has experts, it has an Expert Team and the Regulatory Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety, which has the role of managing radioactive waste and, on the other hand, challenging the suitability of the Čerkezovac site,” Arbutina said. He emphasized that it is difficult to say in advance what the study will show, but that it can be assumed the Čerkezovac site will meet the required criteria. “If it is proven otherwise, experts from BiH would be in a position to initiate proceedings before the European Atomic Energy Community, challenge the location proposed by Croatia, and halt the process,” Arbutina said. Arbutina added that Dvor has not been flooded with donations, as some might think, but that the local population is being given only crumbs. He stated that the donations awarded to agricultural households and institutions by the Fund for the Financing of the Decommissioning and Disposal of Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel from the Krško Nuclear Power Plant range from several hundred to several thousand Euros. “No significant project can be completed with that amount of money,” Arbutina said. He believes that the amount should be significantly higher, considering that the residents have been hostages of the state since the political decision was made in 1999. “It would be better if we had never received that money and if there were no discussion about radioactive waste in the Municipality of Dvor. My personal view is that radioactive waste should not be brought to Dvor, but should remain where it already is,” Arbutina said. Referring to the recent meeting between the delegations of BiH and Croatia regarding Trgovska Gora as a location for a radioactive waste repository, Arbutina said that it was the first direct exchange between those responsible for radioactive waste issues. Croatia plans to store radioactive waste from the Krško Nuclear Power Plant, as well as existing institutional waste, at the Trgovska Gora site in the Municipality of Dvor, right on the border with BiH.