NO JUICE FROM ZWENTENDORF
Lucas, Michael
No juice from Zwentendorf Austria says no to nuclear power Michael Lucas Zwentendorf, Austria's glistening new power plant on the banks of the Danube River near Vienna, is a model of...
...It is careful at every step to avoid major political polarization and police intervention...
...On the other hand, experience has shown that electoral initiatives endanger the effectiveness of citizens' groups...
...In the region of Basel, the location of the largest concentration of nuclear power plants in Europe (on Swiss, West German, and French soil) and in the area of Geneva, also heavily seeded with nuclear reactors, the vote was unambiguously anti-nuclear...
...The Party's leadership, however, refused to abide by the convention's decision, splitting the FDP not only over nuclear power but also over the Party's ability to function democratically...
...They vowed to continue to do so as long as scientific doubts about safety remained...
...Elected on an anti-nuclear ticket, the Party reversed its position once in office...
...Austria's cautious approach to the issue contrasts with the hard-line pro-nuclear position of West Germany, a leading nuclear supplier, which has treated growing nuclear opposition with unabashed police repression and ever more elaborate fortifications for its many nuclear installations...
...Kreisky, chief tactician of his Party, has a recognized talent for staying ahead of his rivals and arbitrating public disputes...
...Until last June, the Kreisky government consistently refused to meet the anti-nuclear movement's long-standing demand for a national referendum, but finally the political ripples and splits caused by the nuclear power issue could no longer be ignored...
...As to health and safety questions, the government, union leadership, and a phalanx of business and scientific experts claimed Zwentendorf would be the "safest nuclear reactor in the world...
...In the end, the anti-nuclear forces won a victory that is still reverberating throughout Europe...
...The power of the international nuclear industry to hold its ground against the emerging current of parliamentary opposition is partly due to the very nature of nuclear development...
...In the Brunsbuettel plant of the same type, a similar accident in June 1977 let comparable tons of radioactive steam burst from its plumbing system...
...Reprocessing of the spent fuel will be taken care of by the French...
...It also revealed the political vulnerability of the industry's expensively orchestrated arguments for nuclear power...
...Hardly a week and a half after the Zwentendorf vote, the FDP's annual convention voted to oppose the government's controversial plutonium-fueled fast-breeder plant under construction at Kalkar...
...It resulted in a bill that outlaws nuclear power — at least until pro-nuclear interests can pass a counter bill...
...The FDP leadership's action in the Federal Republic of Germany in overriding the anti-Kalkar decision of its membership may be the image of what one can expect from the majority of parliamentary parties...
...No juice from Zwentendorf Austria says no to nuclear power Michael Lucas Zwentendorf, Austria's glistening new power plant on the banks of the Danube River near Vienna, is a model of international nuclear cooperation...
...Changing the direction or stopping a sphere of industrial activity as far-reaching as nuclear power inevitably will require more than piecemeal electoral and parliamentary decisions on energy policy...
...But the OVP, badly split on the nuclear issue, refused Kreisky's offer...
...In the cantons in which there are no operating or planned nukes there has been proportionately less public discussion over nuclear power...
...Its eight-year fuel supply comes from the uranium mines of South Africa...
...Only one small detail mars the picture of Zwentendorf as the latest testimonial to the forward march of nuclear power in Europe: It can't be turned on...
...Such fears are partly based on the results of anti-nuclear parliamentary initiatives so far...
...Although Zwentendorf does have many safety features that similar reactors elsewhere lack, boiling water reactors throughout Europe have suffered a number of technical problems and serious accidents...
...One telling example is the Falldin government in Sweden...
...A saturation public relations campaign, the active support of the Austrian Confederation of Labor, and the prestige of the Prime Minister himself would assure a pro-nuclear victory...
...The Bonn government has also attempted — in large measure unsuccessfully — to divide the anti-nuclear movement by isolating its radical wing through police and court action and associating anti-nuclear opposition with terrorism, communism, and crime...
...The West German Free Democratic Party (FDP) is a case in point...
...A popular referendum on the nuclear issue seemed to be the best solution...
...Although the margin was less than 1 per cent, the unexpectedness and the decisiveness of their action sent a tremor through Austria's pro-nuclear leadership and like-minded governments elsewhere on the continent...
...Critics of parliamentary action point out that as a result of the upsurge of anti-nuclear electoral activity in West Germany, there have been cases in which previously active citizen groups have simply disappeared...
...The heavy losses suffered by the FDP in last year's elections have placed it dangerously close to losing the 5 per cent minimum it needs to remain in Parliament...
...As a multinational industry, atomic power is tightly riveted to the industrial structure of the world economy and the international division of labor...
...The $600 million, 730-megawatt boiling water reactor was built by a consortium of the Austrian government and West Germany's Kraftwerk-union...
...The Initiative generated in grassroots energy, ingenuity, and determination what it lacked in funds and media access...
...Since the FDP leaders are part of the German government coalition along with the Social Democrats, the anti-nuclear decision of the FDP's membership will probably resurface at some point in the coming year as a major or minor government crisis...
...With 40 per cent of the seats in Parliament, the OVP is by far the largest opposition party...
...Whatever European governments said publicly about the unimportance of the anti-nuclear movement, in private strategy sessions they could no longer be complacent about the new form of political opposition...
...The campaign against Zwentendorf was organized by the Initiative Against Nuclear Power Plants, a broad coalition of groups spanning the political spectrum from the extra-parliamentary Left to the environmental Right...
...It revealed untapped anti-nuclear political reserves among Europe's electorates...
...On the other side, Austria's electricity board contributed about $3 million to saturate the public with pro-nuclear arguments...
...A nuclear program, of which the Zwentendorf plant was to be the centerpiece, was promoted through the 1970s with the assurance that it would help meet Austria's increasing electricity needs in the 1980s, help redress the balance of trade deficit by reducing oil imports, enhance Austria's competitive position in the world industrial market, and create new jobs...
...In West Germany and France, Europe's leading nuclear powers, citizens' anti-nuclear organizations were on their way to becoming national and international movements...
...the anti-nuclear movement would not be able to accuse the government of going over the heads of the people...
...Caught between his Party's pro-nuclear policy and a growing anti-nuclear coalition, Austria's most prestigious "socialist" decided his Party should not assume the sole responsibility for throwing the switch at Zwentendorf...
...The Swiss vote On February 18a national referendum was held in Switzerland on whether local communities should have the right to decide whether nuclear power plants could be built within their thirty-kilometer radius...
...Such prominent figures as Leopold Gratz, mayor of Vienna and deputy head of the Socialist Party, had taken public stands against nuclear power...
...Moreover, with only five months for the opposition to prepare its campaign, a pro-nuclear victory appeared certain...
...Political fallout from the "peaceful atom" was increasing, spreading across national boundaries...
...For European anti-nuclear groups, the Austrian vote represents an unexpected and heart-warming victory...
...In Geneva 75 per cent, in Canton Basel City 69 per cent, and in Basel Province 61.1 per cent approved the referendum...
...The community of Tessin, located in an area known for its conservative politics but where a nuclear waste dump is planned, also cast a "yes" vote...
...Enrichment of the fuel will be done in the United States...
...So much anti-nuclear pressure developed that in 1977 the government suddenly canceled in midstream a series of public teach-ins on the pros and cons of nuclear power...
...Following the November referendum, the Prime Minister said he accepted the decision of the electorate, but still felt that nuclear power is safest and cheapest for Austria...
...The Austrian people, voting in a historic referendum last November, decided to keep the power off at Zwentendorf...
...The nuclear industry is demanding that Zwentendorf be kept intact, and the government has spoken of the possibility that the anti-nuclear vote can be overruled by Parliament...
...Possibly the Socialist Party could save its neck for another term...
...In this small but industrialized country, the government is not only the state's political manager, but also part owner and active administrator of the nation's most important industries...
...The results of the anti-nuclear referendum held in Switzerland in February also indicate growing anti-nuclear electoral strength in Europe...
...It was in these areas in which the pro-nuclear publicity campaign was the most effective...
...In contrast, the Austrian Socialist government offers a pro-nuclear soft sell...
...He also works with DIP, an energy and environmental news service which collaborates with the Berlin Friends of the Earth...
...Austria's wily Prime Minister Bruno Kreisky did not expect that outcome when, responding to political pressure last summer, he authorized the referendum...
...The election was won on an anti-nuclear platform...
...Although they were excluded from the halls of Parliament, their political development would sooner or later affect the electoral arena...
...In 1976, which turned out to be something of a turning point in par-liamentary nuclear politics, Sweden's Social Democratic government was brought down by the Falldin Center Party after forty-four years of uninterrupted rule...
...The danger is that the nuclear industry will continue to strengthen its hold while the average citizen is led to believe that the electoral process can be effective in changing government nuclear policy...
...So the Socialists faced the unwelcome prospect of being the "nuclear party" just as nuclear power was emerging as a major political issue in the elections scheduled for June 1979...
...M.L...
...Although the Swiss referendum on a national level lost by a hairline margin, the anti-nuclear resolutions were overwhelmingly approved in the important cantons in which reactors are operating or planned...
...Other items on the ballot were whether or not to make constructors of nuclear power plants liable for damages and possible nuclear accidents and a resolution to give priority to the question of health and safety in the planning and building of nuclear reactors...
...The Socialist Party holds Austria s present government together by a delicate balancing of conflicting social interests...
...At first, Kreisky proposed formation of a pro-nuclear coalition with Austria's People's Party (OVP), an amalgam of business, farmer, and labor organizations...
...Their present chagrin is understandable...
...The Party, which came to power in 1970 on a campaign promise to marshal the country's fledgling technocratic talent to modernize the economy, is proud of its record of promoting public discussion of important public policy questions...
...Police umpired nightly clashes between the pail-and-poster brigades of the anti-nuclear Initiative and the pro-nuclear Socialist youth organization...
...It said the teach-ins had "alarmed rather than reassured the Austrian public____" In January 1978, Zwentendorf s fuel rods had to be flown into the site by helicopter under police protection...
...government and the Austrian nuclear lobby were more than confident...
...In 1971, even as construction work began on the Zwentendorf plant, anti-nuclear campaigns were organized in northern Austria against other planned nuclear installations...
...In several cantons, however, particularly those in which nuclear power plants are already operating or planned, clear majorities were registered for the referendum...
...And despite Austria's recent nuclear vote, it will be years before nuclear power can be definitively stopped there...
...In the national tally 5.1.1 per cent of the votes were cast against the referendum, thus officially defeating it by a narrow margin...
...Putting one foot on the anti-nuclear bandwagon may be one strategy by which the Party can retain the electoral strength it needs to survive...
...To give the contest a semblance of fair play, special billboards and advertising spaces were set aside for the posters and leaflets of both sides...
...The national "no" average can be attributed in part to the massive public relations campaign of the Swiss nuclear lobby...
...The vote would keep nuclear politics out of the election...
...It merely prevented the start-up of the Zwentendorf nuke...
...In January 1977, a break in the piping system released some 200 tons of radioactive steam from the Gundremmingen boiling water reactor...
...The Austrian referendum did not end nuclear power in Austria...
...The Party's consensus politics are appropriately suited to Austria...
...Nuclear power involves the long-term development schedules of all major European economies — schedules that have been decades in the making...
...The referendum demonstrated that the anti-nuclear movement was much more than the "handful of radicals" pictured by the nuclear establishment...
...More than half of West Germany's reactors of this type have either been decommissioned or temporarily shut down...
...The anti-nuclear forces have organized a campaign demanding that the nuclear parts of the reactor be dismantled, its fuel rods be sold abroad, and Austria's nuclear contracts with France for reprocessing nuclear waste be annulled...
...Demonstrations, petitions, and public debates on nuclear safety and radioactive waste storage problems forced the Kreisky government to promise not to build additional nuclear power plants or a planned waste-storage depot until all technical problems of waste storage were solved...
...On a more general level, the Austrian referendum has awakened Europe's electoral parties to the expanding "political capital" of an anti-nuclear position...
...His Socialist Party Michael Lucas is an American living in Berlin and is a contributor to European anti-nuclear and political publications...
Vol. 43 • June 1979 • No. 6
