The European Commission and national nuclear regulators today (26 April) endorsed a report on the safety of Europe’s nuclear facilities.

The report was requested by member states in March 2011 following the Fukushima nuclear accident. It combines 17 national reports from countries with nuclear power.

The report says that Europe’s nuclear facilities are safe, but identifies areas for improvement. It says that there should be measures to improve containment, particularly in regard to limiting the consequences of natural disasters. The number of safety reviews should also be increased, it says.

Interim results of the stress tests were released in November. One of the findings was that provisions on who is liable in the event of a nuclear accident vary widely between countries.

Greenpeace has criticised the tests for being incomplete, noting that some countries carried out much less thorough checks than others.

Despite the finalisation of the regulators’ report, inspections of nuclear facilities are still ongoing. A proposal to harmonise nuclear safety requirements was expected in June, but this has been delayed until the end of the year because the inspections are taking longer than expected.

A consultation on what can be done to improve nuclear safety closed on 29 February. One of the measures being considered is the introduction of a nuclear liability framework. The report will be presented to the European Council in June.

Safety failures

The Commission has also announced that it is taking Greece, Poland and Portugal to the European Court of Justice for their failure to comply with the EU nuclear safety directive.

The directive, which had to be implemented by July 2011, requires member states to set up a national framework to allocate responsibilities for ensuring nuclear safety and co-ordinating between different state bodies.

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