Background

Following a request from the Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian authorities, the European Commission (EC) established the Chernobyl Regional Programme (CRP) as a part of the TACIS 1993 Nuclear Safety Programme. The programme was intended to assist those countries to mitigate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident and to stimulate the economic regeneration of the affected territories.

The programme began with a rapid exercise to assess the needs of the three countries, identify actions already undertaken and define the key priorities for funding by the EC and other donors.

In the years between the accident and the start of the TACIS programme, much had already been done towards alleviating the consequences of the accident by the respective governments in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and later through bilateral and international assistance programmes of various types. In order to ensure the most effective utilisation of Community resources in these areas, an essential first step to the development of an action programme, was to gain a comprehensive understanding of what had already been achieved, what was currently being pursued and what was envisaged for the immediate future.

Objective

The objectives of the present contract were:

• to compile a comprehensive overview of all measures, taken or planned, by the governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, as well as through bilateral, multilateral or international assistance programmes, to mitigate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident and to promote the economic regeneration of the affected regions.
• to provide a concise and clear distillation of this information for use by the Commission, in consultation with its counterparts in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, in establishing priorities for the allocation of TACIS funds in these areas.

Results

The contract was signed in October 1993. The contractor collected information and developed a database comprising data on over 180 ongoing and planned programmes/projects implemented through international bi- or multi-lateral initiatives.

An analysis of the information was performed based on two main areas:

• health (including dose assessment, epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment)
• environment (including environment dose assessment, decontamination and waste disposal, recovery of affected territories and economic regeneration).

The overriding conclusion was the lack of a global strategic approach to the issue of the remediation of the consequences of the accident.

Some recommendations were provided that contributed to the preparation of the main lines of a strategy for EC assistance in the area. The strategy was further developed in the next steps eventually leading to a comprehensive programme and a selection of projects to be tendered and implemented (See also Contracts 22540, 22541 and 22552).