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STATE DUMA RATIFIES CONVENTION ON LIABILITY FOR NUCLEAR DAMAGE

RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, March 2 (RIA Novosti) - The State Duma ratified the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage on Wednesday.

With the necessary 226 votes, the document was supported by 344 members of the Lower House, 45 were against, nobody abstained.

As deputy head of the Russian Atomic Energy Agency, Sergei Antipov, said at a plenary session of the State Duma, the ratification of the Vienna Convention meets "the political, financial and ecological interests of the Russian Federation."

He noted that this international document regulates the procedure, timeframe and principles of compensating the damage inflicted in nuclear incidents.

Mr. Antipov came out for the earliest working out of a federal law on civil liability for nuclear damage, which is provided for by the Vienna Convention.

The head of the State Duma committee for international affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, pointed out that the ratification of the Vienna Convention is aimed at the protection of the interests of Russia's citizens in case of possible incidents at nuclear power plans, including in neighbor countries. Mr. Kosachev specified that practically all countries in Eastern Europe, as well as Ukraine and Lithuania, have nuclear facilities.

According to Mr. Kosachev, in passing a law of the Russian Federation on civil liability for nuclear damage and on its financial ensuring, the upper limit of the liability will amount to approximately $60 million, which corresponds to the minimum damage under the Vienna Convention.

He said that presently work over the document was going on, and it would be submitted for the consideration of the House for the second reading in the two months to come.