(1)

Article 2(b) of the Euratom Treaty provides for the establishment of uniform safety standards to protect the health of workers and of the general public against the dangers arising from ionising radiation.

(2)

In order to achieve that objective, Article 31 of the Euratom Treaty entrusts the Council with the task of establishing those basic standards on a proposal from the Commission, while Article 32 allows those basic standards to be revised or supplemented.

(3)

The Council has adopted several directives laying down basic safety standards for the protection of the health of workers, patients and the general public against the dangers arising from ionising radiation. The most recent is Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom (1).

(4)

Pursuant to Directive 2013/59/Euratom the radiation exposure of occupationally exposed workers is to be assessed for each worker individually based on measurements. The estimation of effective and equivalent doses based on such measurements relies on scientifically established values and relationships, namely dose coefficients, which are published by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (‘ICRP’). Article 13 of Directive 2013/59/Euratom requires Member States to use those dose coefficients.

(5)

In 2022, ICRP completed a five-volume series of ICRP Publications on Occupational Intakes of Radionuclides: Parts 1 – 5 (2), which includes an updated set of dose coefficients for occupational exposure from intakes of radionuclides and covers the most commonly used radionuclides, including radon.

(6)

Following those ICRP publications, the Commission invited the group of experts referred to in Article 31 of the Euratom Treaty to provide an opinion on the updated dose coefficients. Their opinion of 28 June 2023 highlighted that the series of ICRP publications and all the dose coefficients therein are unique at international level and reflect the state of the art in the area, considering both their advanced methodology and its application to an extensive number of radionuclides. Therefore, the group of experts expressed itself in favour of the use of the updated dose coefficients for the estimation of the effective dose and equivalent for the purposes of Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom.

(7)

Pursuant to Article 33, first paragraph of the Euratom Treaty, each Member State is required to lay down the appropriate provisions, by legislation, regulation, or administrative action, to ensure compliance with basic standards. It is therefore appropriate to make recommendations for harmonising the provisions applicable in the Member States regarding the use of the updated ICRP dose coefficients by Member States’ competent authorities in order to ensure consistent implementation of the relevant provisions of Directive 2013/59/Euratom across the Union.