Social relations

Social Contacts

Historical background

The building of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant was the biggest investment in Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s. In view of the then political, economic and international concerns, the serious decision to build the power plant was made with the complete exclusion of the Hungarian people. The towns in the surroundings of Paks got only minimal information provided by the government-directed media. Despite the fact that during construction the nuclear energy industry was experiencing dynamic development, people viewed the rapidly developing gigantic building by the Danube with suspicion and fear. The word “atom” meant something they could not absolutely trust.

The situation changed radically at the end of the 1980s when there started a great democratizing process in political, social and economic life. A change of the administrative system also became necessary, providing more rights and obligations for the local authorities, which replaced the previous council organizations.

Today citizens in the surrounding area can give voice to their anxieties and fears. This deservedly helps ease the tensions between the power plant and the population of its surroundings, which perhaps cannot be avoided. This is especially important because the Danube as a natural border isolates one of its sides from the favourable infrastructural and job-creating effects of the power plant, while the other side enjoys those, and yet the risks are the same for both. In the beginning there were some actions (signature collecting, producing death rate statistics, parliamentary speeches, etc.), with which attempts were made to gain some compensation. These were isolated attempts and there was no opportunity of working out any comprehensive solution. At the same time, the power plant had some difficulties with the media, which by that time had gained more freedom and found negative news connected to nuclear energy more “marketable”. These news items were in many cases far from reality. The basis of the power plant’s information strategy is openness, with direct information contact as the most efficient means.

In the interests of effective dialogue, the establishment of a social, civil organization proved to be inevitable. This civil organization as a registered legal entity has a unified programme, operating order and budget, and is able to efficiently represent the genuine interests of people in the region. In order to do this, from the 13 surrounding townships’ local authorities, on the initiative of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant Ltd., the Social Monitoring and Information Association [Társadalmi Ellenőrző és Információs Társulás (TEIT)] was established on 30 June 1992.

The Social Monitoring and Information Association [Társadalmi Ellenőrző és Információs Társulás (TEIT)]

In the company’s founding charter seven local town authorities from Bács-Kiskun County and six from Tolna stated their intent to cooperate. Paks is a full-right member of the organization, but being connected to the power plant in its administrative system it organizes its finances separately. Sixty thousand people live in towns within a 12-kilometre radius of the power plant. TEIT operates according to a specially developed order. Its centre is the office of Kalocsa’s local authority. Normally, meetings are held every two months, but if needed there can be special sessions, too. The representative of the PNPP is a regularly invited participant of these meetings, with the right of consultation. The chief executive officer of the PNPP meets at least once a year with the mayors of the TEIT townships. The company’s president makes a report every year and sends it to the power plant. The company’s work has two major aspects, as implied by its name; it has a supervisory function and it closely cooperates with the power plant in exchanging information. Its aim is not to oppose the power plant but to maintain direct dialogue and cooperation, to build mutual confidence.

The supervisory function of TEIT

The policy of total openness in public information requires comprehensive activity. This task is carried out by an organization specialized for this purpose. Members of TEIT – like others who are interested —can gain insight into every stage of applied technology, such as nuclear electricity production, radioactive waste, handling and storing of worn-out nuclear fuel cartridges or the effects of the power plant on the environment. A supervisory group is organized from the mayors of the company, which can examine the different items of the power plant, look into the related documents, carry out local social monitoring vis-à-vis programmes, operations and organizations, all with the specific interests of the local population in mind. They have a special right to do this, ensured by a separate agreement.

They automatically receive data from the power plant’s high-tech radiation protection environment monitoring system every month, and can compare the results with those of the parallel official monitoring and their own tests. TEIT has built its own monitoring network with the professional and technological help of the power plant and with the cooperation of civil defence organs. The most important elements of this network are the following.

A transluminescent dose gauge at 13 locations, which is similar to the power plant’s own. A water laboratory at Bátya where the measuring of the activity of surface, underground and rainwater can be carried out correctly. The laboratory maintains close contact with the radio-chemical laboratory of Dél-Dunántúli Környezetvédelmi, Természetvédelmi és Vízügyi Felügyelőség(environmental authority). They get professional and technical measuring help from this laboratory and from the power plant, too.

The three radiation monitoring and displaying systems located at the highest points of Kalocsa, Paks and Uszód are there to provide direct information to citizens. The instrument informs them of the accurate time, the air temperature and the level of background radiation, as well as the changes of radiation over periods of 24 hours and one week. A similar mobile system can be installed anywhere if needed.

The Information activity of TEIT

The power plant’s commissioned information organization has built up and cultivates its relationships with the media. These relationships are in most cases reliable, so they facilitate authentic, fast mass communication. Despite this, however, negative news has a sensation value and marketability, especially for the nation-wide media organs. Such news is in many cases based on false reports. An efficient antidote to this misinformation, alongside maintaining reliable contacts with the media, involves direct information, which works really well in the closer environment. TEIT’s activity undertaken in the framework of a contract plays a major role in this. The main parts of this information work are the following. The local authorities of TEIT facilitate personal encounters in civic forums, ensuring for these location, time and advertisement. For the acquisition of experience, TEIT helps to organize visits to the power plant on the part of various organizations (schools, clubs, large companies, institutions, etc.). The organizational structure of TEIT means that fears and misgivings emerging among the public reach it first. Information transmitted from the company to the power plant helps the information work of the plant. The interaction is thus mutual. TEIT enables the power plant to appear in the regional and local newspapers owned by the local authorities and in local radio stations, on television and via other forms of publicity. 

Achievements of the cooperation over the last fifteen years

As a result of the TEIT–PNPP cooperation, the relation between citizens and the power plant has significantly changed. The situation normalized, the initial misunderstandings were clarified, the atmosphere is mostly peaceful and potential tension can be resolved easily. TEIT is open to every civil social organization. It is willing to transmit its information and experiences, and offer cooperation.

One of its most important achievements was that, through joint efforts with the power plant, which could not deal with its spent nuclear fuel cartridges, after the elaboration of a very carefully planned information strategy in the summer of 1994, the 13 local authorities and the power plant decided upon a new nuclear facility, the KKÁT (interim storage facility for spent fuel). This goal-oriented decision was the result of one and a half years of intensive conciliatory work, as a result of which the information obligations, the guarantees to reassure citizens and the guarantees for the field supervision of TEIT were all formulated. This was and is exemplary in the power plant’s region, and even in the whole country. Based on this cooperative work, a tender was handed in for the award of “Industry for the Environment” Foundation in 1994, which won the gold medal. When the award was made it was emphasized that the 13 local authorities and a great industrial plant had realised an exemplary achievement in the elimination of psychological pollution.

This form of cooperation is so successful that in the past few years other organizations have been established on similar lines. The final disposal of solid low and intermediate level radioactive waste is also a burning issue of nuclear energy production, involving the placement of high-level radioactive waste in deep geological repositories after dismantling of the power plant. The issue is constantly at the forefront of citizens’ concerns. Their questions and feelings of insecurity can only be handled through cooperation like that of TEIT-PNPP. That is why one town’s local authority in Tolna County and five in the bordering Baranya Country established Social Supervising and Information Company [SSIC]. With the cooperation of six towns in the potential environment of a high-level nuclear waste repository, Nyugat-Mecseki Társadalmi Információs Társulás (NYMTIT) was established.

Cooperation between PNPP and TEIT is the dominant element of social reconciliation and consensus-making in the environment of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant. It can be regarded as an example of a major element in the development of Hungarian society.