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E.U.: DEADLOCK OVER COMMON NUCLEAR SAFETY RULES REMAINS

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#680
03/12/2008
Article

(December 3, 2008) The European Commission is to shelve, yet again, plans for EU-wide nuclear safety rules. Commissioners had intended to propose, as part of a draft law published 27 November, that the current safety standards, which are voluntary, should become compulsory. The Commission was going to propose such rules for adoption by the member states, but after a revolt by national regulators, it has dropped the idea. It is yet another setback for the Commission in the now six years of deadlock over common nuclear safety rules for the EU.

                                      

(680.) WISE Amsterdam - The Commission first launched a call for EU-wide nuclear safety rules in 2002, as part of its ‘nuclear package', arguing that the case for such rules was compelling: the imminent accession to the EU of ex-communist countries, many of which had Soviet-built nuclear reactors, was presenting the Union with a safety challenge. But member states rejected the proposal in 2004 and ignored a revised version presented a few months later. In the four years since, the case for harmonising and strengthening the rules on nuclear safety, as well as for stepping up control of their implementation, has only become stronger.

 

But mid-November, the European Nuclear Regulators' Group, created by the Commission in 2007 as the high-level group on safety and waste management to develop common approaches on nuclear safety, expressed concerns about the Commission's plans to harmonise standards. Andrej Striar, who chairs the group, said that common standards were a problem for big member states, since it would be difficult to find common rules that would satisfy them all. “Every big country has an established system. None of them is bad or better [than the others]. They are simply different,” Striar said, in comments made to European Voice November 20.

 

In the EU, 15 out of 27 countries get energy from nuclear power, which accounts for around a third of total energy produced in the EU. The majority of nuclear power plants will reach the end of their initially planned lifetime in the next decade or two. Some of them will be decommissioned. Others will be kept in use and their life extended through upgrades. With member states under pressure to increase the use of low-carbon energy, as part of their efforts to combat climate change, the construction of new nuclear power plants is likely. So, whether by upgrading old plants or by building new ones, a pick-up in nuclear power capacity is to be expected, which has to be policed by the strictest safety and security rules and proper protection for the environment.

 

While it is up to each member state to decide whether it wants nuclear plants on its territory, the safety and security of such installations are of common interest in the EU. Member states that do not have nuclear plants have a vital interest in the safe operation of such installations by their neighbours.

 

According to the Commission, EU-wide rules would ensure the transparency of the operation, the sharing of information and measures to be taken in the case of any safety incident, and ensure a consistently high level of nuclear safety throughout the Union. Common rules should apply to the issuing of licences, design certification and the siting and construction of nuclear installations. Disparities between national rules would, on the other hand, harm safety, reduce trust and constitute an obstacle to investment in nuclear installations.

 

Nuclear power is a sensitive subject in many countries. The decision whether to accept nuclear installations is a matter of national sovereignty and the EU should keep out of that debate.

 

Indeed, the Commission's case for harmonizing nuclear safety rules is not helped by a perception that José Manuel Barroso's administration is pro-nuclear. The Commission's energy proposals, most recently the Second Strategic Energy Review, have given positive signals about the use of nuclear energy and its role in combating climate change. If it wants its next attempt to draft nuclear safety rules to succeed, the Commission should take a more neutral stance on nuclear power. Hannes Swoboda, an Austrian Socialist MEP, said that the EU should be “passive and neutral on use of nuclear energy, but active in promoting safety standards”. He criticized Barroso and Piebalgs for failing to play a neutral role in the debate by underlining “the positives without seeing the risks of nuclear power”.

 

Sources: European Voice; 20, 26 & 27 November 2008

Contact:  WISE Amsterdam