Brussels, 08/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - Berated for numerous safety shortcomings in French reactors revealed by the Commission conclusions, the French nuclear safety authority (autorité française de sûreté nucléaire - ASN) has struck back.
Although the European Commission's final report on stress tests does not recommend any closing down of French nuclear reactors and similarly to the rest of the EU only highlights a number of shortcomings that need to be corrected in all member countries using nuclear energy (see EUROPE 10703), it was not to the taste of the French nuclear safety authority. In a press release published on 4 October it said that it regretted that like other European regulators, it had not been involved in the stress tests. The ASN deplores the fact that the Commission conclusions released after the third phase of stress tests, the peer-review “ignore certain important recommendations” in the report published in April by the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) at the end of two initial phases (examination by operators, followed by national regulators), such as the taking into account of multiple accidents at the same plant or the need to include rapid external action resources in the event of accidents. The ASN points out that action plans for the follow-up of recommendations are already being drawn up under the guidance of the safety authorities, which subsequently suggest that they are now only waiting for the European Council to give the go-ahead to continue their work. (EH/trans.fl)