Despite requests from Bosnia not to store its radioactive waste near the border, Croatia’s government has on Tuesday suggested a former military warehouse less than a kilometre from a Bosnian nature park as a disposal site, according to the Hina news agency, prompting outrage in the neighbouring country.
Bosnia’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, Stasa Kosarac, requested that Bosnian institutions check whether it is true that the Croatian Ministry for Environment and Energy has given the barracks in Cerkezovac, near Bosnia’s northern border, to the Croatian Fund for Financing Decommissioning and Disposal of Radioactive Waste of the Krsko nuclear power plant.
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If so, it is a “completely scandalous and extraordinarily problematic decision,” which will “endanger the lives of 250,000 people who live in municipalities along the Una river,” the Minister said in a statement sent to the media.
Una is one of Bosnia’s most beautiful rivers and a nature park that attracts tourists from all over the world and Bosnian officials, including members of the tripartite Presidency, have been asking Croatia to refrain from using that location as its dumpsite for nuclear waste since the plan came to light in 2018.
The plan even prompted the local population along the border to organize protests.
“I am especially concerned by the fact that this information is coming at a moment when we are facing the coronavirus epidemic, when we are doing all we can to protect the health of each person and decrease the negative effects on our economy a much as possible,” Kosarac said.
He also said that the issue should not produce more tensions between Bosnia and Croatia and that it should be solved diplomatically and that the Head of the EU Delegation in Bosnia told him he would get involved as well.
Croatia co-owns the nuclear plant Krsko with neighbouring Slovenia and has a contractual obligation to take in one half of the nuclear waste.
Croatia’s Fund for Financing Decommissioning and Disposal of Radioactive Waste of the Krsko nuclear power plant issued a statement saying that it will cooperate with the public on both sides of the border and if studies conclude that the waste will not endanger the environment, it will seek a building permit for a facility that will safely store the nuclear waste.
“In order to achieve that, it will first have to be proven that this activity will not produce damage to the environment through conducting a study,” the statement said.
