Italy's Referendum Now "Politically Charged"

June 10, 2011 from Euronews

This weekend's referendum on, among other things, nuclear power in Italy is unlikely to have an immediate impact on the sector, according to analysts. Rome banned nuclear power generation in 1987, in the wake of the accident at Chernobyl.There has been a moratorium on its reintroduction since the Fukushima crisis, which began in March. The centre-right governing coalition of Silvio Berlusconi wants to re-introduce nuclear energy to help lower power costs and render supplies more secure.

(more) (less)

In This Video

Italy

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Southern Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two larg... Explore this topic

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is the use of sustained exothermic nuclear processes to generate heat and electricity. The term includes the use of exothermic nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently the nuclear fission of elements in the actinide series of the per... Explore this topic

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government po... Explore this topic

Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi is an Italian politician, entrepreneur, media proprietor, and Prime Minister of Italy (President of the Council of Ministers of Italy), a position he has held three times. He is the leader of the Forza Italia political movement, a centre-right party he founde... Explore this topic

Nuclear power in Italy

Nuclear power in Italy is a controversial topic. Italy started to produce nuclear energy in the early 1960s, but all plants were closed by 1990 following the Italian nuclear power referendum. An attempt to change the decision was made in 2008 by the government, which called th... Explore this topic

Environment

Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements. Environ... Explore this topic

Center-right

The centre-right also referred to as the moderate right, describes adherence to views leaning to the right but closer to the centre on the left-right political spectrum than other right-wing variants. From the 1830s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of socia... Explore this topic

Euronews

Euronews is a European, multilingual news television channel, headquartered in Lyon-Écully, France. Created in 1993, it claims to be covering world news from a Pan-European perspective. Explore this topic

Also See

Italy

Nuclear power

Referendum

Watch Next

4:46

Italy PM Berlusconi suffers referendum defeat‎

Al Jazeera English | Jun 13

Italians were celebrating in Rome after voters dealt premier Silvio Berlusconi a serious political blow on Monday, overturning laws passed by his g...