Brussels, 10/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - Arguing for the highest possible level of independence for national nuclear safety authorities, Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger has promised an early review of safety rules. ENSREG, meanwhile, is not expecting any change to its conclusions on the stress tests.
National nuclear safety authorities across Europe need to be independent in the same way that central banks have to be beyond all influence, Oettinger said at a seminar on nuclear power station stress tests, in Brussels on Tuesday 8 May. He promised a draft EU law before the end of the year to ensure that this obtains, a review of safety rules having hitherto been promised for 2015. Declining to “name and shame” member states where the independence of nuclear regulators is less than in others, Oettinger said that there was a need for greater independence. “We have a lot of different member states. In some, they (regulators) are completely independent. They receive no instruction, but in other member states, I think it could be improved”, he said. The forthcoming proposal, seeking to strengthen the current legislative framework, will, of course, be based on the final results of the stress tests which, having at one time been expected in June, will now be published in the autumn.
The European Commissioner and the European Nuclear Regulators Safety Group (ENSREG), which had set a deadline of June of this year for all stress tests to be carried out, following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011, agreed at the end of last month to allow more time for the tests. ENSREG will submit an initial report to European energy ministers in June, with the final report coming only in the autumn. Oettinger said this was to allow more time for inspections. The stress tests, which were begun on 1 June 2011 to check the ability of power stations in the EU (and neighbouring countries) to resist natural disasters and technical failures, are now in their third phase. Following the report delivered in October 2011 by operators, the national safety authorities submitted their assessments at the end of last year. Under ENSREG coordination, the national assessments have, since then, been undergoing peer evaluation, led by experts from other member states and the Commission. In the interim report submitted at the end of April, ENSREG says that all the countries tested (Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, plus Lithuania which is decommissioning the third tranche of its Ignalia power station) had taken significant action to improve the safety of their nuclear power stations. At the seminar on Tuesday, ENSREG chief Andrej Stritar gave assurances on the transparency of the process and said he did not expect any changes in the final report. (EH/transl.rt)