Brussels, 20/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - In light of the accident that occurred last March at the Japanese nuclear plant, Fukushima Daiichi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, called for greater nuclear safety precautions by announcing the extension over an 18 month period of stress tests, followed by inspections applied at all nuclear plants in the world.
Amano opened the IAEA's ministerial conference on 20-24 June in Vienna. The conference will focus on safety standards. Amano appealed for the UN agency's powers to be increased in the field of nuclear safety. He insisted that, “we have to systematically and regularly ensure the safety of all nuclear plants”. Without contesting the responsibility of the states concerned for their nuclear plants, Amano would like to go even further and allow the agency to play the role of “policeman” in the arena of safety, on the lines of its role in the field of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, he would not like any change to be incurred with regard to the agency's status, because this would require lengthy negotiations between member states that are very divided on this issue. He called for the stress tests exercise to be extended to all nuclear plants in the world and also insisted that national inspections be followed by tests by international experts from the UN agency. Given that it is impossible for this agency (whose task is to promote nuclear energy for civilian use) to examine all the 440 nuclear plants in the world, Amano is proposing that this exercise be carried out on the basis of a random selection system - the IAEA could test one power plant out of ten within three years - which would give plant operators a further reason to apply the strictest safety standard criteria possible. He also appealed for these criteria to be strengthened as soon as possible. (E.H.trans/fl)