Five Member States threaten to throw out Commission’s nuclear safety standards

By Karen Carstens

Date: 20/11/03

THE first-ever legally binding EU-wide nuclear safety standards may never see the light of day as they continue to face opposition from five member states, who argue that they provide no "added value" to existing national rules.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair voiced their concerns over the suggested standards in a letter to European Commission President Romano Prodi last month.

Along with Sweden, Finland and Belgium, they are insisting that two draft directives - one on nuclear waste and the other on nuclear safetybe downgraded into so-callednon-binding instruments.

The five governments view the Commission's "nuclear safety package" as an unnecessary addition to the existing international nuclear safety framework and an unwarranted extension of EU powers.

Together, they wield enough votes in the EU's Council of Ministers to block the directives.

The deadlock looked set to continue at a meeting of the Council's "atomic questions group" in Brussels last night (19 November).

Both the Commission and the EU's Italian presidency have put forward several compromise proposals that would soften the two directives' requirements while maintaining their legal status, but sources say the UK, in particular, has stubbornly refused to budge on the matter.

"The Germans are in the key position," said one industry insider.

"If the Germans change their mind, that could break up the coherence [of the blocking minority]."

The five countries have contrasting domestic policies regarding atomic energy. Finland and the UK are both nominally pro-nuclear while Germany, Sweden and Belgium are all committed to phasing it out as an energy source.

Due to the draft directives' legal base, the European Parliament has only consultative powers but is, however, having major input in the debate, with an industry committee meeting due to take place on 26 November - the same day as a Coreper II meeting discusses the issues.

"The Parliament has been very helpful," said the industry source, adding that several amendments put forward by MEPs to the rules could help break the member states' deadlock.

The nuclear waste directive "could be adopted" he said, after Spanish MEP Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca, author of a report on the directive, put forward a "two-step process" whereby member states can set their own dates to meet EU nuclear safety standards.

"This takes account of national and historical differences that make it easier to find individual timeframes," he told this newspaper.

Finland, for instance, is the "most advanced" with a 2020 target to deal with "high-level" waste - but that is still two years above a 2018 target the Commission proposed in the directive.

But the nuclear safety directive is where nobody seems to see eye-to-eye anymore because "they [the Commission] haven't really defined safety principles".

This lack of clarity has given rise to concerns that national nuclear regulators will be compromised in their ability to do their work.

Moreover, the directive has been watered down so much that many member states fail to see the point in adopting it at all.

Finnish MEP Esko Olavi Seppänen, who is responsible for the nuclear safety directive in the European Parliament, appears to agree with this view.

He has added around a dozen amendments so far, but his final option is to "do away with the directive altogether", the industry insider said.

Europe's nuclear industry has also expressed concerns that the legislative package would add an extra regulatory layer. However, one industry source has suggested that it "will be difficult to explain it to the public" if the directives are killed off. For now, he said, the nuclear industry has adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

Five Member States - Germany, the UK, Sweden, Finland and Belgium - oppose the European Commission's draft directives on nuclear waste and nuclear safety, as they provide no 'added value' to existing national rules.