A few days ago, the demolition of eight buildings on the site of the former Čerkezovac military barracks on Trgovska Gora was completed, in order to free up space for the construction of a radioactive waste storage facility.
This is official information published in the Croatian media, they write Independent newspaper.
We remind you that Croatia intends to store its radioactive waste from the Krško nuclear power plant on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Trgovska Gora, which is less than a kilometer away from Novi Grad as the crow flies.
Earlier, experts said that this threatens 13 local communities in the Una river basin and about 250,000 inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism announced that this news caused great concern among the population in the border area with Croatia, as well as the confusion of the entire public in BiH due to the preparation of the site for the implementation of the long-term warehouse construction project, and that the project did not pass the environmental impact assessment procedure.
“We have not received any official notification through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the institutions of the Republic of Croatia regarding the demolition of the mentioned buildings, nor is there any official information about the status, i.e. the readiness of the environmental impact study, as well as the way in which it will be made available to the public of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the competent ministry stated.
They noted that the demolition cannot be connected with the construction of the center for the disposal of radioactive waste, because the center does not yet have the necessary permits to start work, because the environmental impact study has not yet been published.
“Also, we have not yet received feedback from Croatia to what extent the proposals given on the document on the content of the study have been adopted. According to the opinion of the Legal Team for Trgovska Gora given in the Strategy for the Legal Protection of the Interests of BiH in connection with the issues of disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel at the location of Trgovska Gora, formal consultations that do not fundamentally take into account the objections of the opposite party constitute a violation obligation of the ESPOO Convention. The opinion of the experts is that the study cannot be done without the joint work and research of experts from both sides, which must take place in secured field conditions from any danger that may arise due to the presence of mines and explosive devices”, stated the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
Mario Crnković, president of the Association “Green Team” from Novi Grad, tells “Nezavisne novine” that construction works on Trgovska gora are a clear violation of international conventions.
“A special level of tragicomedy is the explanation of why construction work is taking place on Trgovska Gora in Croatia. They say that they are only demolishing buildings so that they can build a storage facility for radioactive waste, not because they are building a storage facility for radioactive waste. And they say ‘only’, but Europe is silent. They are in construction work, and they haven’t even completed all the necessary procedures for a facility of that type. If Bosnia and Herzegovina did that, we would have sanctions more than Russia, but apparently it is a question of double arshins. The positive thing is that we now have enough formal-legal material for lawsuits, but what is not good is that, despite what the media wrote, the French law firm hired by Bosnia and Herzegovina last year has not yet been paid a stamp,” Crnković pointed out.
He added that Trgovska gora is a classic example that institutions in Croatia, which is a member of the EU, can be held hostage by bad people and bad decisions.
“The case of ‘Trgovska gora’ is not just a story about radioactive waste on the border of two countries, globally, that is the least important, it is the establishment of a new practice, whether radioactive and other dangerous waste can be forcibly pushed to the borders of countries or do we want something more normal. We are often convinced that we in BiH are the measuring stick for bad practices, that we should follow the EU, so the question arises whether BiH should also push the available fall on the borders. Maybe it’s new practices of sustainable development that we haven’t adopted, or it’s hypocrisy towards a country that needs a helping hand, and not a European radioactive barrel by the river it’s drinking,” concluded Crnković.
