Nuclear safety within the EU

Nuclear safety within the EU
By Euronews
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U-talk gives you the chance to pose questions about issues that matter in Europe.

Francesca in Italy asked: “I’m wondering if there is an EU policy on nuclear safety?”

Answering the question is Michèle Rivasi representing the Group Of The Greens/European Free Alliance.

“I wish there was a policy of nuclear safety in Europe because, as we see in Fukushima and as we saw in Chernobyl, nuclear accidents have no borders. But unfortunately, in the Lisbon Treaty, this jurisdiction hasn’t been given by the European Commission. At the moment, the energy mix, for example, is the responsibility of individual countries. The only thing about energy contained in the Lisbon Treaty is the 20% renewable energy.

When it comes to nuclear energy, there is the initiative of Commissioner Oettinger calling for the design of stress tests that are uniform in all nuclear power plants so that none of them have an accident like Fukushima. But this depends on whether EU member states want to accept the new assessment criteria of the risk of nuclear power plants.”

In late May, after weeks of bitter debate, European nuclear regulators reached an agreement on the scope and manner in which to conduct tests to check the resistance of the 143 reactors operating in the EU, in case of natural disasters and human error.

Regarding the terrorist threat, that will ultimately be assessed separately – as demanded in particular by France, who cited national security reasons.

The results of stress tests are expected by late April 2012, after which governments of member states would then decide whether or not to close the plants considered deficient.

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