Günther Oettinger, the European commissioner for energy, said he expects that EU regulators can come up with a common set of criteria by which to conduct “stress tests” for safety on Europe’s nuclear power plants by Thursday (12 May).

The European Nuclear Safety Regulatory Group (ENSREG) is to discuss a draft set of common criteria and guidelines by which safety tests will be conducted on the 143 nuclear power plants across the EU.

The EU’s 27 leaders at their 24-25 March Council meeting mandated the regulatory group and the European Commission to prepare the safety tests following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on 11 March. The aim is to ease public anxiety over the safety of Europe’s nuclear power plants.

“We have to start the stress tests as soon as possible,” Oettinger said Wednesday (3 May) at the end of an informal meeting of energy ministers outside of Budapest, Hungary. “We hope to realise this by next week”.

The aim is to start the “stress tests” in June and complete them by November so that the Commission can relay the results to the European Council in December.

A preliminary set of criteria, which is supposed to form the basic guidelines for the tests, have already been drafted by the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association (WENRA).

The group, which is a member of ENSREG, has recommended nuclear plants be tested for their ability to withstand earthquakes, flooding and “other extreme natural events,” but not man-made disasters.

EU officials said there was no agreement yet on whether or not to include scenarios like plane crashes or terrorist attacks. They said many member states are hesitant to include such tests because the results, which are supposed to be made public as part of the safety review, would put national security at risk.

The regulators have also not yet agreed on how member states will conduct “peer reviews” of each other’s power plants.

Rebecca Harms, co-leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, said that excluding tests on whether plants can withstand terrorist attacks or plane crashes would render the “stress tests” weak. “Based on current drafts, the proposed … tests look set to fall far short of rigorously assessing the potential risks and safety of Europe’s nuclear reactors,” she said.

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