92002E3569

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3569/02

by Jonas Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL) to the Council

(12 December 2002)

Subject: Situation regarding unsafe nuclear reactors in the applicant countries

The Council's working group on nuclear safety is in the process of assessing the safety of nuclear plants in the applicant countries. As late as the summer of 2001, this working group published a list of several safety problems at the nuclear plants at Temelin in the Czech Republic and Paks in Hungary, for example.

According to critics of nuclear plants in the applicant countries, nothing much has been done to improve safety other than numerous documents being delivered from the capitals of the applicant countries to Brussels. No specific upgrading of safety seems to have taken place and no evidence has been produced to show that the nuclear plants are safe.

Can the Council say what measures will be taken in regard to upgrading nuclear safety at Temelin and Paks and in the applicant countries in general?

Reply

(13 May 2003)

The Council would like to point out that in May 2001 the Working Party on Nuclear Safety (WPNS) produced an initial report with a number of safety recommendations addressed to the candidate countries; it drew up a second report in June 2002, on the basis of the replies received from those countries and their commitments to take the appropriate measures. The Honourable Member will note that the number of recommendations in the second report has been reduced considerably, both for the candidate countries in general as well as for the two countries he mentioned in his question, i.e. the Czech Republic and Hungary. All these countries have accepted and addressed all the WPNS recommendations contained in the initial report and have promised action to deal with the problems outstanding and the questions which are still unsolved. The review which gave rise to these reports was conducted without prejudice to the responsibilities of the national authorities in the candidate countries. This was not a check for the purposes of a normal approval procedure, but an assessment such as usually carried out by experts.

For further information, the Council invites the Honourable Member to consult the regular evaluation reports the Commission is producing, in which the reports already mentioned and the candidate countries' implementation of safety recommendations are taken into account.