Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-09-Speech-4-059-000"
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"Madam President, honourable Members, following numerous meetings with various parliamentary committees, I can report to you today on the progress of our ambitious plan to introduce a Europe-wide stress test for nuclear power stations in the European Union and in other countries.
Given the early hour, let us take a serious approach this morning, Mrs Harms. Please trust me to remain objective. When we discuss this subject, I feel as if I am being criticised by both sides. As the worldly-wise person in the middle, I know I am in the right place.
I said ‘in the middle’, Mrs Harms. I did not say anything about mediocrity. Please listen carefully. I believe that my position will meet your expectations when it comes to objectivity.
Stage 1: In a market economy, the main responsibility of the owners and operators of industrial plants is undoubtedly to ensure themselves that their facilities are safe, to carry out regular safety inspections and to report the results. For this reason, during the first stage, every operator of a nuclear power plant has been asked since 1 June to submit a report to the national authorities using the agreed European inspection criteria, our inspection catalogue, which is public and transparent. The reports must be submitted quickly, but they must be thorough, and thoroughness is more important than speed. They must include the operators’ evaluation of their own nuclear power plant and the conclusions drawn by the operators on the basis of the inspection criteria and the consequences of Fukushima.
Stage 2: This consists of another review by the national nuclear safety regulators of the reports produced by the operators and an evaluation of the regulators’ own inspections and findings.
Stage 3 is new and is made up of peer reviews. During the third stage, we intend to gain our own picture of the situation, make our own evaluation and draw our own conclusions at a European level. We will not be sitting in our ivory tower and we will not be naively accepting the results provided by the national authorities. We will be using mixed European teams and we will have the option of visiting the nuclear power plants ourselves. The European teams will be made up of nuclear experts from the various Member States and Commission officials.
Every step, in particular, in the context of the peer reviews, can only be taken on the basis of agreement between the Commission and ENSREG, which means that without the Commission’s agreement, the process cannot be completed. This is why I can assure you that a serious, objective and thorough approach is very important to me.
Everything that happens will be transparent. Only in cases where security interests require confidentiality will a lower level of transparency be permitted. I believe that the test criteria cover the main expectations and legitimate interests of the public in Europe. They include all natural phenomena, such as high water, extremes of heat and cold, earthquakes and other things. They involve all the nature-related risks.
Secondly, I am more convinced than ever that although the starting point of the Fukushima disaster was a natural event, this was not the sole cause of the disaster. In my opinion, human failure played a significant if not a decisive role in Japan before the earthquake and the tsunami, when it came to improving safety and modernising the plant, and after the disaster with regard to keeping the damage to a minimum.
This is why for me the human factor was an important component of the stress test. At first, I was not given adequate support on this issue by the nuclear regulators. I am grateful that Parliament and, in particular, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety were behind me. For this reason, I incorporated their expectations into the negotiations. We have ensured that the human factor is widely represented in the test criteria.
I would like to make a very specific distinction here. We have made sure that the human factor and human failure are fully covered in the test criteria. By this we mean an error, a lack of qualifications, poor management of a nuclear power station or a pilot error leading to an aircraft crashing. This means that human issues and human failure are fully represented in the stress test.
We proposed to the Council that the safety of all the nuclear power stations in the EU should be investigated on the basis of a comprehensive risk and safety evaluation and the Council reached a decision on this at the end of March. The European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) and the Commission were asked to draw up the criteria, the methodology and the timeframe for carrying out the stress tests. This was not an easy process and we received comments of all kinds on our efforts.
Mr Turmes, you seem to believe that you can run the parliamentary proceedings with your heckling. Please allow me to finish what I have to say. You will have enough speaking time afterwards.
I would like to explain to the honourable Member that this subject is so important that I should have at least seven to eight minutes speaking time. Anyway, they are your Rules of Procedure. If you want more speaking time, Parliament itself can decide on this. You are a Member of Parliament and I am not.
The subject of human error is fully covered. However, one area which was not included is crime. By this I mean that deliberate attacks on nuclear power stations, perhaps by terrorists, in whatever form, including cyber attacks and attacks by aircraft, do not form part of the stress test. There are two reasons for this. The first is purely formal. The nuclear safety regulators in many of the Member States are not technically responsible for this area and referred the Commission to the responsibilities of the secret service, the police, the air force, the army and the domestic authorities. Therefore, we will now invite the Member States to send representatives from the relevant authorities to us so that we can discuss with these authorities before the summer recess how we can incorporate the consequences of crime.
The second reason is that the Member States raised the issue of confidentiality and put forward strong arguments in support of this, which meant that the discussions could not be transparent. We want to submit an interim report in November. I will be happy to enter into further formal discussions with Parliament before the peer review takes place. There is one point which we need to be clear about: thoroughness is more important than speed. I do not agree with the short timeframe which some Member States felt was adequate for the special tests.
I do not believe that we can do justice to the test criteria that are so important to us in the space of four to six weeks. Therefore, we may need a period which runs into spring of next year. As far as other issues are concerned, please remember that I am not concerned with the question of whether nuclear power stations are being operated, planned, constructed or shut down. That is the responsibility of the Member States according to my understanding of the law. However, I do feel that I am responsible for safety both with regard to power stations that are in operation and those that are being planned. For this reason, I am grateful that our invitation was accepted on a working level and that Ukraine, Russia, Switzerland, Armenia, Croatia and Turkey agreed to take the next step of a joint European stress test, which will allow a safety investigation to be carried out beyond the borders of the European Union.
I look forward to reporting the results to you as soon as possible. In addition, I would like to explain that I will also be concerned over the next few months with drawing up strict and objective legal regulations governing nuclear waste. I was rather surprised that the committee did not categorically exclude the possibility of exporting waste to third countries by a large majority.
I would like to explain to the honourable Member that I am here in my role of Commissioner. My party membership is a private matter. Please make a distinction between Mr Oettinger, the former Christian Democrat, and Commissioner Oettinger. Therefore, I can say as a Commissioner that I was surprised that restrictions were imposed on export bans by a clear majority. Perhaps it would still be possible to change this during the process of reaching a parliamentary decision by the end of June.
I can tell you today that we now have in place the test criteria, the methodology and the timeframe, which, in my opinion, will meet the expectations of European citizens with regard to this stress test.
Simply saying ‘Rubbish’ is not an argument, Mr Turmes. ‘Rubbish’ is not a word that we like to see in the Minutes, but if it makes you happy, then I will accept it.
In any case, we had a tough struggle. Firstly, many of the nuclear safety regulators were not prepared to agree to a European inspection procedure. This is because the energy mix is a matter for the Member States and because the monitoring, authorisation and supervision of nuclear power plants also falls within the remit of the Member States. I believe that the fact that we are carrying out a stress test at a European level with joint criteria is an extremely important and historic step forwards in the interest of the safety of all European citizens. I can assure you that I will not allow a watered-down version of the stress test to be used.
When the outcome of the stress test is presented to the public, with all the results, evaluations, proposals and conclusions, the citizens of Europe will know more about European nuclear power stations in all the Member States than they have done despite all the efforts made over past decades. I remember very well how people living in areas close to national borders wanted to find out about the safety features of nearby nuclear power stations. This was often very unsatisfactory from the perspective of the citizens. In six or nine months, we will have significantly more data, facts and findings at our disposal than have been made public over the last twenty years.
The stress test consists of three stages."@en1
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"(Heckling from Mrs Harms)"1
"(Heckling from Mr Turmes)"1
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