European Commission to assign EUR 110 mln for Chernobyl Shelter projects

According to Barroso, the European Commission is the major donor of the Chernobyl NPP Shelter project. He stressed that during Tuesday's conference of the donor states he would be ready to announce that the European Commission would assign additional funds worth 110 million euros to complete the facility construction.

Besides, Ukraine may hope for his fully-fledged assistance in the implementation of the projects connected with the Chernobyl NPP safety.

Yanukovich, in turn, thanked representatives of the European Commission for the financial assistance.

The Chernobyl Shelter Fund (CSF) was set up in 1997 at the EBRD to assist Ukraine in transforming the existing shelter over Chernobyl's destroyed unit 4 to a stable and environmentally safe state.

The EBRD acts as the fund manager and works closely together with the Government of Ukraine to help ensure that the project is implemented efficiently. After review the Bank enters into grant agreements with the recipient organisation and disburses funds to contractors.

To achieve this goal, the CSF finances the implementation of the so-called Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP) which was elaborated by Western and Ukrainian experts in 1997 as a step-by-step solution to the current situation at Chernobyl.

The initiative for the establishment of the Fund has been lead by the G-7 governments and the European Community since it was announced at the G-7 summit in 1997 (Denver). At the G7 summit of 1999 (Cologne) the initial pledges of US$ 300 million were nearly doubled.

More concerned governments declared their will to support the CSF at the pledging conferences in November 1997 (New York) and July 2000 (Berlin) and at an event in May 2005 (London).

The Nuclear Safety Account (NSA) was the first multilateral fund set up at the EBRD in 1993 to finance nuclear safety projects in central and eastern Europe. It was established as part of the G-7 initiative of 1992 which was announced at the Munich Summit in order to improve nuclear safety in the region. Until now the NSA has received 320 million euros from the European Community and 14 countries: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, ITAR-TASS reports.

See www.itar-tass.com