Press Release

The Lovisa movement is here to stay, said Lotta Lehto, one of the participants in the founding meeting in Lovisa on May 26th, 2008.

Ten years ago, during the years 1997-2000, an active citizens' movement, called the Lovisa-movement, resisted the planned final storage of the nuclear waste. The movement was successful in its goal, but has since remained passive. Now, the drive of the nuclear industry, both domestic and from abroad, to build new reactors in Lovisa and its surroundings, as well as elsewhere in the country, necessitates immediate action. This is why we decided to breath new life in the Lovisa Movement and to give it a new, European, dimension.

No longer can the movement be a concern for the inhabitants of the Lovisa region only. Nor can it be a purely Finnish affair. The nuclear industry wishes to make Finland and Lovisa their prime showcase. Therefore, participation in the Lovisa Movement must henceforward be open to all Europeans against the construction of new nuclear power plants and for the abolition of the nuclear weapons systems. We must no longer restrict our perspective to the local NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) point of view. Only a Europe wide-movement can stop the new nuclear boom.

Finland is presently planning to build several new nuclear power stations, to allow uranium mining, and to provide final storage of radioactive waste. Finland has thus become a nuclear exception, admirable or frightening, depending on how you regard nuclear power. In order to stop the plans to turn Lovisa region into an international centre of the nuclear power industry, let us speak out on all aspects of the nuclear energy.

Everybody is worried about climate change. But investments in nuclear power will by no means prevent or reduce the global warming. Nuclear energy is not affordable nor clean or sustainable. It is a deceptive way of producing energy. The further construction of nuclear power plants would perpetuate our unsustainable ways of living and worsen their negative environmental impact.

Today we are also witnessing nuclear proliferation and the beginning of a new arms race. As long as we keep these two mentally apart, we will only contribute to the keeping and the multiplying of both. For these reasons, we have signed the recent Saintes Appeal for a Europe of peace and security, free from both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

Lovisa the 26th of May, 2008

Mikael Böök, Jyrki Ikonen,Sonja Ilvetsalo-Koskinen, Anna-Kaarina Kippola, Leena Krohn, Erik Lehtiö, Lotta Lehto, Timo Noroviita, Angela Oker-Blom, Marita Peltokorpi, Thomas Rosenberg

Contact by email to info@lovisamovement.eu

www.lovisamovement.eu - www.loviisaliike.eu