Less than a month after the 14th meeting of the Franco-Luxembourg Joint Commission on Nuclear Security, several ministers within the government of the Grand Duchy came forward Friday to call on French authorities to improve safety regulations at the Cattenom Nuclear Power Station in Lorraine.
The demands issued by Luxembourg Minister of Health, Lydia Mutsch, and Minister of the Environment, Carole Dieschbourg, for the relevant French authorities to strictly implement the new 2014/87/Euratom directive on the safety of nuclear installations followed a report commissioned by the Greens in German parliament which was published Friday. In the report, the security flaws at Cattenom were listed across 70 pages.
The directive will deem it obligatory to guide safety improvements to the objectives set for a new reactor, with the issue of improving nuclear safety frequently cropping up as a topic of discussion during bilateral meetings between the Grand Duchy and France.
The Luxembourg Government claimed that the critiques laid out in the report were reflective of those expressed during the stress test carried out in 2012 jointly between Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Luxembourg. The latter pledged to continue discussions with German counterparts.
The Ministers of Health and of the Environment deemed it wise for the European Commission to offer its own opinion on the report, particularly regarding the criticism of the work still needed to be done to improve the security in accordance with the measures established following the aforementioned stress test. An official statement released by both Ministries Friday promised that a similar claim would be submitted to the Commission.
The Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant, France's largest nuclear power plant, experienced over 80 events, varying in gravity, between March 2000 and March 2008. The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) has previously cited 2016 as a strategic year for the Cattenom site, with three reactor shutdowns planned and the ten-year inspection of reactor No. 1 enabling security changes to be made.
