Motion for a resolution | Doc. 11462 | 11 December 2007

Military waste and the environment

Signatories: Mr Ivan Nikolaev IVANOV, Bulgaria ; Mr Ruhi AÇIKGÖZ, Turkey, EDG ; Mr John DUPRAZ, Switzerland ; Mr Bill ETHERINGTON, United Kingdom ; Sir Alan MEALE, United Kingdom, SOC ; Ms Maria Manuela de MELO, Portugal, SOC ; Mr Laurenţiu MIRONESCU, Romania ; Mr Edward O'HARA, United Kingdom ; Mr Gabino PUCHE, Spain, EPP/CD ; Mr Lluís Maria de PUIG i OLIVE, Spain, SOC ; Mr Iñaki TXUEKA ISASTI, Spain

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only those who have signed it.

The ecological situation in certain east European countries, particularly those previously part of the Soviet Union, poses grave problems today, partly resulting from the military legacy left behind by the Soviet army.

The military waste left over from the Soviet era in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova is a cause for concern. According to an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) report, in Ukraine alone, some 2.5 million tonnes of arms, munitions and military waste are lying unclaimed, including four sites where radioactive residues have been buried. Between 5% and 10% of the military depots and dumps in the country are said to require major repair work. In Belarus, military sites occupied some 300 000 hectares in the Soviet era, of which 200 000 hectares is forest land, and the liquidation of armaments and munitions left behind, including toxic and radioactive materials, is said by the report to constitute the country’s most serious environmental problem. The local authorities now face the challenge of removing pollution from ground soiled by oil or areas subject to heavy radiation. In Moldova the military legacy comprises some 20 000 tonnes of untransportable arms and munitions, all stored in Transnistria. Were they to explode, the result would be a disaster in both ecological and human terms.

The Assembly invites the governments of all the Council of Europe member states to work in close collaboration with the countries directly affected to find appropriate, technically viable and politically acceptable solutions to the problem posed to the environment by military waste, in particular:

• by lifting all military secrecy concerning military waste located on the territory of third countries;
• by providing the third countries affected with not only precise information on military waste generated by them in the past and now located on the territory of those third countries, but also the human, logistical and financial support required to manage that waste appropriately.