Philippe Jamet, commissioner at the French Nuclear Safety Agency, presented to members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), on 19 June, the results of stress tests performed at European nuclear power plants. The report, presented to the Energy Council on 15 June, was criticised at length by the MEPs present, mainly in connection with the inadequacy of the scenarios studied, which were limited to the risks of flooding and earthquakes.

The fact that the tests were limited to these two cases, inspired by the Fukushima accident, without taking account of others, such as the risks of a major accident due to malicious acts, represents a defeat for Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger, in the face of the demands of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) charged with conducting the tests, said Yannick Jadot (Greens-EFA, France).

NO LIST OF CRITERIA

There is no list of criteria that can be used to determine which plants, among the 143 that exist in the EU, have acceptable safety levels, said other MEPs. They added that only one inspection was conducted in each country, although countries like France have 58 nuclear plants.

The visits carried out as part of this exercise were symbolic, replied Jamet, adding that 30 to 40 real visits could be organised per year. In October, the Commission will propose new nuclear safety legislation covering three areas: governance and independence of authorities, choice of technical criteria and improvement of transparency.