Best Wishes for 2005 from ENS President

Bertrand Barré AREVA, France President, European Nuclear Society bertrand.barre@areva.com

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families all the very best for 2005.

I guess, like me, you are still in a state of shock following the catastrophic events which recently devastated southern Asia. However, I think we can take heart from the wave of worldwide sympathy and solidarity that these tragic events have generated. Many lessons can be learned; it’s up to each of us to decide which of those lessons we need learn.

Personally, I choose to retain two lessons that I believe are especially relevant to our Societies: Firstly, the urgent need to speed up development in this region of the world, where all too often it is the poorest who suffer the most. We cannot ignore the huge need for energy which this region will continue to experience in the coming decades. Secondly, to remember the awesome power that this planet can suddenly unleash. When we witness the biblical scale of the damage that natural disasters like the tsunami can have upon mankind, we realize how foolish it would be to disregard the threat posed by events that we ourselves can trigger if we continue to meddle with the planet's climate. This is why we must continue to strive to make abundant supplies of sustainable, carbon-free nuclear energy available to all the world's citizens, while at the same time seek to conserve energy and promote renewables too.