| Abstract [eng] |
The object of the Master Thesis „The Securitization of Nuclear Energy“ is nuclear energy securitization at regional neighboring countries – Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Hungary. These countries were chosen to assess how different the nuclear energy policy is formed according to geopolitical, environmental, economical, energy independence conditions. The problem under consideration of this Master Thesis is determined as – what are the decisive factors, which play the role for the countries’ political decision makers, when the neighboring countries reject the nuclear energy as the threat, and the others choosing (or expanding) nuclear energy as the possible guarantee to enhance the national security of the state. The aim of the Master Thesis is defined as – to determine the main principles of nuclear energy policy forming by Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Hungary (whether the nuclear energy is securitize in these countries), and also to assess the differences of nuclear energy policy and the reasons of these differences in the mentioned states. The objectives of the Master Thesis as defined below: 1. To analyse the definition of „nuclear energy security“ in the chosen neighboring countries. 2. To determine the most frequent reasons of securitization on nuclear energy in the chosen neighboring countries. 3. To compare how the chosen neighboring countries’ nuclear energy make the influence on these countries’ energetic and national security assessments. To achieve the Master Thesis goal, it was reviewed and analysed the strategic documentation, political statements, media articles and announcements, the appeals to the international organizations and other related documentation of the countries under research. The research of this Master thesis has revealed how by using the securitization theory there were identified the securitization actors, the main aspects of the speech act. The main aspects, which were identified as the most common in the countries under research, are determined as: 1. The huge investments of Russian Rosatom in nuclear reactors construction projects, what make the option to stay in this sector longer by providing uranium, and also investing in the management of the radioactive waste management; 2. Regional countries making the political strategic decisions on nuclear energy with no interest to discuss the importance of these decisions with the neighboring countries, which might be directly affected by these decisions; 3. Manipulation of the international organizations to desecuritize the nuclear energy even the nuclear reactors construction projects are obviously unsafe (e.g. IAEA international experts missions invited by the Belarus); 4. The energy dependency on Russian natural gas, crude oil and solid fuel import to European Union countries, which still remains very high. The research of this Master Thesis has revealed that nuclear energy is taking stage almost equally with the renewable energy sources (RES), which are also becoming like one of the most climate friendly energy sector. But it should be mentioned that the RES sector slowly becoming the question of securitization as well. The main reasons to securitize this sector is related to the very high financial investments in the RES infrastructure projects, which might attract insidious investors – this financial support process from not reliable partners might create the options of the long term dependency by paying the huge loans. Also the environmental organizations protesting of the RES establishment and expand projects at the areas close to the natural nature territories. The other aspect which was revealed as the possible field of the securitization – the radioactive waste management, which also requires high financial investments and might create long term dependency on not reliable investors. The topics of RES and radioactive waste management might be recommended as the research topics for the other Thesis. |
