In Western Europe (except France) and North America, new nuclear construction has been halted since before the Chernobyl accident and dozens of plants which were under construction have been halted. Starving for new orders, the western nuclear industry and the governments which support them, look to Eastern Europe as one of the last places to make money and more importantly, maintain their nuclear design and construction capacity until a new generation of nuclear power plant can be sold to the public.
The same tricks which were used to fool the public in the west are being used again in the east: Underestimating the cost of construction and the time of the start of operation, down playing the health effects of radiation, ignoring routine releases, promising unfinished technological solutions to all known current problems from waste storage to reactor design defects. A highly informed and politically active national and international campaign in the west made it politically impossble to continue with nuclear construction.
A similar movement, "culturally translated" to fit national/local circumstance, must be developed and supported in the East, under much more difficult circumstances than western activists dealt with in the late 1970's and early 80's. There is already an international "task force", spanning both the largest environmental groups and the local initiatives working together effectively. But the financial and political resources of the nuclear industry are substantial. And though we have some encouraging success (halting the EBRD funding of Mochovce for example), there is still much work to do in advocating a clean and sustainable energy path for Eastern Europe - this Fingerbook and the Chernobyl 10th Anniversary are ways you can begin to get involved and if you do - with a bit of luck, we will all live to see a nuclear free Europe.