Brussels Under Fire Over Nuclear Proposals

Proposals to give the European commission unprecedented powers to supervise the safety of nuclear installations ran into a storm of criticism yesterday.

Loyola de Palacio, the Spanish commissioner for energy, said she wanted to introduce common standards and monitoring mechanisms ahead of the biggest enlargement in the EU's history.

Five of the 10 countries expected to join the union in 2004 have a combined total of 18 nuclear reactors, mostly of old Soviet design.

Three, in Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria, have been closed as part of the entry negotiations. But current member states cannot be obliged to do the same.

"European citizens would never forgive us for inaction in this field," Ms de Palacio said. "It would be paradoxical if the EU were to monitor nuclear safety in the new member states but not in the rest of the enlarged EU."

Britain and France are suspicious of any attempt by Brussels to increase its powers in this highly sensitive area.

The commission insisted it was not trying to influence energy policy choices in the 15 current member states, eight of which use nuclear energy.

Italy, Germany and Belgium have all decided to phase out nuclear power and only Finland is likely to build a new nuclear reactor in the coming years.

The idea is to leave national safety bodies to do their work, but to impose checks and require improvements.

"Coordination of the national systems within a community framework is a guarantee that high safety standards will be maintained at nuclear installations," the commission said.

"Today it is no longer possible to consider nuclear safety from a purely national perspective. Only a common approach can guarantee that high standards will be maintained in an enlarged 25 or even 28-member union."

But the proposals came under immediate attack. "The only purpose of the nuclear package is to revitalise the nuclear industry in an enlarged EU," said Luxembourg's Green MEP Claude Turmes.

Another worry is that with inspections still in national hands, non-nuclear states such as Ireland and Austria will have little or no influence on the safety and health hazards associated with nuclear installations.

Under the Euratom treaty, which dates back to 1957, when the EEC was founded, the EU has no legally enforceable common standards on nuclear safety.

Ms de Palacio proposed raising Euratom's borrowing ceiling to 6bn euros (£3.8bn) from 4bn euros to cover nuclear safety and decommissioning projects.

The commission also wants to ensure that sufficient financial resources are set aside for decommissioning, which can cost between 200m euros and 1bn euros per reactor.

This issue is especially sensitive in France, where the state-owned Electricité de France has used decommissioning funds to finance acquisitions abroad.