Brussels, 18/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament called on Wednesday 18 May for Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger to reject the compromise reached five days earlier with the European Nuclear Safety Regulator Group (ENSREG) on the criteria for the planned nuclear stress tests for the 143 nuclear reactors operating in the EU. Under the terms of the compromise, the safety of the reactors against naturally occurring events, disasters or accidents will be dealt with separately from safety against acts of terrorism or sabotage. The compromise makes provision for full safety tests to check how well EU nuclear power plants stand up to natural disasters, such as earthquakes or floods, and also the consequences of all kinds of accident, whether human or natural in origin. Since national safety authorities acknowledge that they have no powers to deal with issues related to safety against terrorist attack, the compromise proposes that a working group of member state and commission experts be set up. The format, remit and work method of this group have still to be decided. This solution would allow Oetinger's concerns to be taken into account.
“The proposals by ENSREG add nothing to the debate on the so-called nuclear stress tests. Besides general insufficiencies, such as participation being voluntary and a lack of independence, we note substantial flaws which will impede effective security checking of the nuclear reactors using the latest technical and scientific knowledge and tools. Specifically, tests relating to human error, terror attacks, cyber attacks and airplane crashes are either not covered at all or are dealt with insufficiently. Furthermore, accidents, known technical flaws and the ageing of reactors are not addressed or will not be dealt with in the tests”, say Rebecca Harms (Germany) and Claude Turmes (Luxembourg) in a press release. “The nuclear lobby itself is dominating the conception and implementation to such a degree that the independence and the transparency of the results cannot be ensured”, they go on to say. The final decision on the stress test criteria is expected at midnight on 18 May. (E.H./transl.rt)