17 Jun (NucNet): The nuclear industry is in favour of any legislation that can contribute to improving nuclear safety, but proposed revisions to the European nuclear safety directive are too technically detailed and risk undermining the authority of national safety regulators, an industry group has said.
Jean-Pol Poncelet, director-general of the European nuclear industry trade association Foratom, said the industry has a number of concerns about the potential impact of the revised directive.
He said the proposal is too technically detailed for a European-wide safety framework and it risks undermining the authority of national safety regulators.
Mr Poncelet said the European Commission (EC) should have waited until member states had time to report on the implementation of the existing directive, which was adopted in 2011.
“The member states are due to submit to the EC their report assessing the implementation of the current directive by 2014,” he said. In light of this, the EC should have waited to revise the current nuclear safety directive until the results of these reviews and reports are available.
Mr Poncelet said the EC should have taken into consideration the national regulators’ proposals, because regulators remain the competent authorities as far as nuclear safety is concerned.
Frederik Hassel, deputy director-general at the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority and member of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (Ensreg), said European regulators do not see any need for major changes in structures or responsibilities because of the Fukushima-Daiichi accident or stress tests.
Mr Hassel said: “My conclusion is that the regulators do not see any justification for major changes in the directive at this time. In addition, there were some voices underlining that the effectiveness of the current directive should be evaluated first, before it is time to propose and do any modifications.”
Mr Poncelet also said the EC should wait because of the need to comply with international standards and the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency is reviewing its nuclear safety rules.
Mr Poncelet said that the proposal is “too technically detailed” to fulfil its ambition of introducing a general European safety framework.
This objection was raised by Ensreg in April when it said that the proposed directive “has within it a great detail of prescription and guidance which could reduce the flexibility and dynamics of the European nuclear safety framework”.
A proposal for an EU-wide nuclear safety directive was presented by the EC on 13 June.It calls for the establishment of a European system of peer reviews and EU-wide harmonised nuclear safety guidelines.
The EC said the proposed amendments to the existing directive aim at improving the regulatory framework for nuclear safety in the EU.
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