South Down Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) has welcomed a decision by the European Commission that will make it harder for the British Government to subsidise new nuclear projects such as the one at Hinkley Point.
Ms Ritchie stated:xa0“Having not learned the lessons from the disaster that was Sellafield, The UK government seem determined to pump more public money into a new nuclear programme that will saddle us with debt for generations.
[caption id="attachment_33754" align="alignleft" width="240"]
South Down MP Margaret Ritchie backs European Commission’s decision over nuclear power xa0development in the UK.[/caption]‘The UK government has been lobbying Brussels strongly for a relaxation in state-aid rules for nuclear power and I was pleased to learn that the European Commission has instead, quite rightly, tightened the restrictions on such subsidies. The Commission is also investigating whether the deal with EDF is already in breach of EU competition rules.
‘This project is lurching from disaster to disaster with the government already committed to fund a guaranteed strike price that is double the current market price for electricity.
“We should be focusing on investment in genuinely green energy projects that will benefit both the economy and the environment rather than throwing good money after bad in a failed nuclear project”, added Ms Ritchie.
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