Brussels, 07/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - Most of the members of the European Parliament who took the floor during a debate on the safety of nuclear facilities in Belarus, at the start of the plenary session of the European Parliament on Monday 6 June, raised concerns as to the safety and compliance with international standards of the future nuclear power station at Astraviets, close to the border with Lithuania.
The MEPs asked the Commission whether this power station, which is to enter the first stage of its commissioning by the end of 2016, respected the EU's nuclear safety rules, and called upon it to use all available instruments to ensure that it is subjected to the appropriate stress tests.
Many MEPs raised the cross-border nature of the issue, stressing that the fallout from any disaster could not be contained within the borders of a country, in reference to the Chernobyl disaster (former USSR, Ukraine). More generally, the question of nuclear safety through Europe was raised, with several MEPs stressing that many facilities in the EU and its neighbouring countries were operated beyond their anticipated lifecycles.
Speaking on behalf of the Commission, Commissioner Christos Stylianides said that the nuclear stress tests carried out in the EU and the neighbouring countries were a matter for national competence and had been undertaken on a voluntary basis, carried out by the operators and supervised by the national nuclear regulatory authorities.
The Commissioner said that Belarus, like many other neighbour countries, confirmed its willingness in June 2011 to apply the EU stress tests and anticipates that it will submit its national assessment report for the Astraviets site in 2016-2017, he said. Once the Commission has received this national assessment report, it will arrange a peer review of this installation by the EU, he added. “If it is already a positive development, the Commission would like to accelerate the process to implement the nuclear stress test in Belarus”, Stylianides added, also highlighting the need to increase the independence of the Belarusian nuclear regulator.
Relaying the concerns of the neighbouring Lithuania, the Commission has been calling on Belarus for several months to carry out a stress test on the Astraviets power station in order to determine the safety of the future plant (see EUROPE 11497 and 11557). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)