Brussels, 13/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 12 May, the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) was unable to reach agreement to finalise the criteria for the stress tests to be undertaken by 143 working nuclear reactors in the EU. Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger called on ENSREG to meet again on 19 and 20 May, in Prague.
There is a power struggle going on. Nuclear member states, which want to limit stress tests to assessment of the resistance of power plants in the face of three eventualities: - aggression by natural phenomena (storms, earthquakes, floods), the loss of safety systems (cooling or electricity supply), and serious accident (damage to the reactor fuel, difficult cooling of tanks for used fuel). Commissioner Oettinger, on the other hand, wants to include all possible risks in the stress tests, including terrorist attack, cyber-attacks and air crashes.
While it seemed as though a compromise was shaping up in the middle of the week, consisting of not explicitly mentioning terrorist action but including all natural and human factors in the test criteria, several points are blocking and delaying the work. Making this a problem of principle, the United Kingdom wishes to rule out terrorist attacks from the criteria, as these do not come under “safety” but under “security”. Other member states are willing to include terrorism, but their safety authorities consider they are not competent to deal with such matters. A working group composed of national experts responsible for security issues could be set up. It now remains to be defined whether security issues will, or not, be included in the stress tests. (E.H./transl.jl)