Borssele, The Netherlands - December 2002

In November 2002, the Environment Minister of the centre-right Dutch government formally announced that the State of the Netherlands would no longer pursue the early retirement of the Borssele nuclear power plant. This indicated the official reversal of a nuclear phase-out policy which began in 1994. It is a major victory for the Borssele employees and for the management of the EPZ utility, who battled 8 years for their jobs, against all odds.

The Borssele Nuclear Power Plant

Borssele NPP (450 MWe) is the only commercial nuclear power plant of The Netherlands. It was built between 1968 and 1973 by Siemens/KWU, and went in operation in October 1973. It has enjoyed a consistent good operating record and had never safety-related events of significance. However, by 1994, a 10-year safety evaluation showed that a number of design changes would be required in order to keep up with the safety standards of newly built nuclear plants. A 230-million-dollar project was defined to implement these changes.

At the time, the Dutch electricity industry was fully state-controlled. The four utilities in the Netherlands participated in a co-ordinating organisation, Sep, which was responsible to the Economy Ministry for all plant investments and for the national electricity production planning. It was decided that Sep would also pay for the Borssele upgrading project.

In the summer of 1994, when there was still a centre-right coalition government dominated by the Christian Democratic Party CDA, the then Economy Minister Andriessen authorised Sep to continue with the Borssele modernisation project. Siemens got the contract to implement it.

Situation after the 1994 general elections

In the autumn of 1994, after heavy loss of the Christian Democrats in general elections, a new centre-left coalition was formed under the Labour Party leader, Wim Kok. Initially, this government had no strong anti-nuclear policies. Actually, one of the three coalition partners - the Liberal Party - was rather pro nuclear.

Wim Kok

The new Economy Minister, Hans Wijers (of the anti-nuclear D66 junior coalition partner) got a rough riding in Parliament when the Sep business plan was being debated in November 1994. The Sep planning covered the years between 1994 and 2003; however it was reported by Sep that the Borssele NPP should be operated until 2007 to amortise the 230 million dollar modernisation. This “life extension” was targeted by the Green Party and its allies. After two votes in the 150-seat parliament (the first vote stuck) the Sep business plan was rejected by 77 votes to 73. The Economy Minister, in order to salvage the Sep 10-year business plan, then made a compromise deal with Sep: the nuclear power plant Borssele would be shut down by December 2003, the plant upgrade would go ahead, and Sep would receive - on January 1, 2004 - 30 million dollars to compensate for safety investments that could not be amortised in the residual lifetime of Borssele. Sep would not take legal action against this political compromise. This deal was closed without involvement of EPZ, the utility that owns and operated Borssele, and without discussion of consequences for the plant employees. Parliament accepted this deal as a decent nuclear phase-out policy.

Hans Wijers

The 1997 plant modernisation

After the 1994 debate and the decision to phase-out nuclear energy by 2003, it became politically quit around nuclear issues. Nuclear energy seemed to be a ‘dead horse’. Nuclear opponent were satisfied that, in ten years time, it would be all over.

At the Borssele nuclear power plant itself, employees did not worry too much about the future at first. An immediate political shutdown had been avoided and there was a backfitting project to manage. The modernisation project required all available resources to make it a success. In 1997, the power plant had a 5-month outage and all design changes were implemented: new primary safety valves, new steam- and feedwater lines, a new main control room and an emergency control room, new emergency diesel generators, back-up heat sinks etc.

When the unit was returned to power in the autumn of 1997, after successful testing of all systems, it was celebrated as a great achievement.

In the Dutch electricity industry meanwhile, by 1997, big changes were under way. The Economy Minister, Hans Wijers, was moving to liberalise the electricity market and to eliminate the Sep monopoly in this area. The organisation Sep, responsible for centralised production and distribution of electricity, was to be dismantled altogether. Electricity generators would have compete in a free market. Nuclear opponents within the government realised that the State would have to relax its control over electricity production and, consequently, over the shutdown of the Borssele NPP. The Economy Minister, Hans Wijers, moved to implement the nuclear phase-out “beyond liberalisation”.

In June 1997, he announced that the closure of the Borssele NPP would be written in the plant’s operational license (until that time, the plant licence had not been limited in time). To the press Wijers made the statement: ‘we will make the re-opening of the Borssele plant as difficult as putting toothpaste back into the tube’.

The utility EPZ was not able to take formal actions because it’s interests were still being represented by Sep, which had agreed to the phase-out and would not object to the decision of the government.

The employees of the nuclear plant, no matter how busy they were at that time with systems testing during the project outage, came together to organise their own protest. They found inspiration in the methods used by anti-nuclear opponents, who several times had succeeded to block or delay nuclear licenses by legal actions. Independent of Sep or EPZ, they mobilised friends and families and collected in a few week’s time 5000 formal letters of protest against the change of the plant operational license. These 5000 letters were packed in a model greenhouse - to visualise the environmental effects of a nuclear phase-out - and were presented at the doorstep of the Economy Ministry.

In a normal public procedure, the Minister should answer all these complaints against the nuclear phase-out, and the plant employees would have the option to challenge the answers in court. This had always been the procedure when anti-nuclear opponents protested some nuclear license.

But this time around, Hans Wijers decided not to consider the 5000 letters of protest because they were, in his view, irrelevant to the deal made between the government and Sep. Plant personnel was, in his view, no party in the nuclear phase-out decision.

Foundation of Stichting Borssele-2004+

The plant employees then organised themselves in a legal entity, the Stichting Borssele-2004+ (Foundation Borssele-2004+). This legal entity would have the possibility to hire a law firm and take legal actions. Practically all 320 plant employees signed a formal letter of attorneyship for the Stichting Borssele-2004+, and donated some money for expenses.

In January 1998, the Stichting Borssele-2004+ challenged the Minister of Economy in the Raad van Staten, the Constitutional Court which oversees Government decisions. They were joined in this legal action by the Netherlands Nuclear Society (NNS) and the Royal Institute of Engineers (KIvI).

Legal victory

To sum up the result of the long legal procedure that followed: in February 2000, the Raad van Staten ruled in favour of the nuclear workers. According to the court, it had been an illegal action of Hans Wijers not to consider the opinion of the plant employees, they had been deprived of their rights for a public hearing. The Raad van Staten restored the unlimited operational license of the Borssele NPP. The Raad van Staten is the highest administrative court in the country, so no appeal is possible for the Economy Minister. This was a major victory for the Stichting Borssele-2004+.

The Government sues EPZ

Because the legal procedure in the Constitutional Court had taken so long, the market liberalisation had already been implemented by the time it was over. By the Electricity Act of 1998, the Sep organisation had been dismantled and the system of centralised planning had been eliminated. In a separate development, the EPZ utility had been split up. The smallest part - the Borssele production site - kept the name EPZ, and the other EPZ sites (all fossil-fired plants) were transferred to Essent, another utility.

The result of these two developments was, that the new EPZ became virtually identical with the workforce of the Borssele nuclear power plant. And the historic limitations imposed by Sep and its deals were gone. So EPZ quickly announced to the world, that it had no intentions to close down Borssele in 2003, and that it would continue to consume its operational license.

The Government decided that it would not give up its policy of a nuclear phase-out. It claimed that the deals made with Sep were valid for EPZ as well, and they sued EPZ for breach of contract. This new court case was brought before the civil court in Den Bosch (December 2000). The government presented the case, as if EPZ had accepted the shutdown of Borssele in return for a financial compensation of 30 million dollars. Insiders of the industry do realise, naturally, that 30 million dollars is only a little fraction of the real value of a good nuclear plant, and it was ridiculous to suggest that EPZ would have accepted such a deal.

The pro and anti nuclear lobbies

The Raad van Staten ruling had been a wake-up call for the antinuclear pressure groups in The Netherlands, who suddenly realised that their victory was slipping away. But also the Borssele workers, through the Stichting Borssele-2004+, became more effective in public communication, as well as the EPZ utility. The sessions of the court in Den Bosch became occasions for pro-nuclear demonstrations by the employees on one side of the street, and anti nuclear demonstrations on the other side. Luckily, there were no incidents. For the workers, the demonstrations were big morale boosters

Borssele personnel in Den Bosch

The official policy of EPZ has always been, that it wanted a dialogue with the non-governmental organisations on nuclear and environmental issues, and no confrontation.

Nuclear opponents in Den Bosch

Ruling of the court in Den Bosch

The legal procedure in the court in Den Bosch took from December 2000 to September 2002. On September 25, 2002, the judges ruled clearly in favour of EPZ. According to the judges, there had never existed an agreement between the Government and EPZ to shut down Borssele, so EPZ was under no obligation to do so.

It was a happy day for the EPZ employees, but an appeal by the government was to be expected. However, that appeal did not come because of a surprising political change of heart.

Change of government

Jan Peter Balkenende

In the summer of 2002 the centre-left government of Wim Kok had been ousted from power after the general elections had been won by two rightist parties, the Christian Democrats of Jan Peter Balkenende and the List Pim Fortuyn (followers of the assassinated populist politician Pim Fortuyn).

Balkenende formed a centre-right Cabinet that did not last long, internal troubles in the List Pim Fortuyn have forced a Cabinet crisis and early elections on January 22, 2003.

However, the Ministers of the Balkenende Cabinet are still governing as a care-taking government. And they decided that it was against the best interest of the country to shut down Borssele before its time. The government has trouble to realise the carbon dioxide reductions (Kyoto obligations) and it badly needs the contribution of pollution-free power provided by the Borssele NPP.

Official end of nuclear phase-out policy

The Greens have recently made a last-ditch effort to turn the tide and they tabled a motion in parliament to force the Government to appeal against the ruling in Den Bosch. This appeal was theoretically possible until December 24, 2002. However, on December 18 the Lower Chamber of Parliament rejected this antinuclear motion with a comfortable margin.

So there will be no appeal, and this is the official end of the Netherlands’ nuclear phase-out policies. What is going to happen after next year’s general elections, is tomorrow’ s concern.

Borssele, Christmas 2002
Jan WIEMAN
chairman of Stichting Borssele-2004+
Vice-President, WONUC-The Netherlands