International Action Day on Belene, June 5
Dear Friends,
Over the past year NGOs from many different countries have campaigned against the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant in Bulgaria and at least 10 international banks refused funding for this controversial project. Concerns center around the fact that Belene is sited in an earthquake area and that the reactor type is of a russian design, which has not been built in Europe before and for which no safety assessment exists.
We have however, just received news that the French bank BNP Paribas aims to give a loan of 250 million Euro to begin construction of the Belene NPP and that this deal is to be signed over the coming weeks.
As Belene is the first of some 20 new nuclear reactors planned for Eastern Europe, it is key that the European anti-nuclear movement challenges this new development. French groups are already planning protests for next week, but as BNP Paribas is an international banking group, we need to also muster a wider response.
We are therefore asking you to participate in a European Action Day on Tuesday, June 5 against BNP Paribas' planned support for Belene.
As BNP Paribas has offices in all European capitals, we aim to hold protests in front of BNP Paribas' offices in at least 10 to 15 European cities on this day. Last Fall a similar action helped force Italy's UniCredit to withdraw support for the project and we are hoping that the same type of action will have a similar impact on BNP Paribas.
For our own planning, it is imperative that you let us know soon, whether we can count on your support. We will provide a model press release, a draft leaflet and a background paper on Belene in English, that groups in the different countries can translate and adapt for their own use. The individual actions can be fairly simple (a few people with a banner and leaflets are fully sufficient) as the impact of the action day depends mainly on the fact that it will happen simultaneously in different countries. We have picked June 5 because this is world environment day and we hope that this will assist us in getting press coverage in the international and European press.
We will be sending you further information and action materials on Tuesday. In the meantime, we are hoping to build a network of participating groups as soon as possible. Please let us know if we can count on your support and send an email to Heffa Schuecking
(Urgewald) and Jan Haverkamp (Greenpeace). Our email addresses are heffa@urgewald.de and jan.haverkamp@ecn.cz
Thanks for your help!
Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace Eastern Europe Petko Kovatchev, Green Policy Institute, Bulgaria Heffa Schuecking, urgewald, Germany Sebastian Godinot, Les Amis de la Terre, France
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