Proposition 54K2322

Projet de loi portant modification de la loi du 15 avril 1994 relative à la protection de la population et de l'environnement contre les dangers résultant des rayonnements ionisants et relative à l'Agence fédérale de contrôle nucléaire, concernant l'organisation du contrôle physique.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

Feb. 22, 2017

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

health control nuclear power station nuclear safety

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PP VB

Abstained from voting

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ PVDA | PTB

Party dissidents ¶

• Nahima Lanjri (CD&V) voted to reject.
• Olivier Maingain (MR) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

April 27, 2017 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteurs, Mr Thiébaut and Mr Metsu, refer to the written report.

Ms. Temmerman has the word.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, you do not have to worry. I will keep it pretty short.

With the present bill, the government wants to reform the control and inspection of nuclear installations. This interests us all. Nuclear safety is a very important factor.

Given the deplorable track record of our outdated and depreciated nuclear power plants, I think that we need to attach even more importance to nuclear security than in the past. In recent months and years, our nuclear power plants have blown out in unreliability. There were numerous incidents.

From abroad, too, it was occasionally pointed out that our nuclear power plants would not be reliable and even unsafe. There was a complaint against several Dutch municipalities; ninety municipalities from Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have sued Electrabel and the FANC in court in connection with Tihange 2; the German state of Nordrhein-Westphalia has ingested millions of iodine tablets for fear of a nuclear disaster in Belgium and so on.

Colleagues, initially, the government wanted to chase the draft through Parliament fairly quickly. However, we asked for hearings, among other things because we had received a message from Greenpeace. I have to thank the Minister, because those hearings, though after slight pressure, are eventually allowed.

There are many things to say about the bill, but I will limit myself to two things, namely the transparency and independence of the physical controls on nuclear installations.

I think everyone agrees that transparency and independence must remain guaranteed. However, we must conclude that this is not the case today. The best illustration of this is that the former CEO of Doel’s nuclear power plants has simply become the DG of the FANC and can sit in the board of directors of the Bel V branch affiliated to the FANC, which should be responsible for the controls on the nuclear sites.

The bill does not provide a solution to this. I have therefore submitted an amendment, together with colleagues Thiébaut and Nollet.

Your answer, Mr. Minister, was that it is important to recruit the right man or woman in the right place. For inconsistencies and possible confusion of interests, apparently one eye is closed. Therefore, we have submitted our amendment again.

The bill also does not provide a solution to the legal schemer zone in which Bel V is located today. Bel V, which was established in 2008 as a branch of the FANC, carries out inspections in the Belgian nuclear power plants and the nuclear installations of the major university hospitals. In the absence of the necessary implementing decisions on the FANC Act in its current form, the current operation of Bel V and other, small private recognised institutions is actually still illegal.

The bill wants to fix that. Despite the resolutions adopted in the Parliament in 2007 and 2010 on this subject – which, in the meantime, once again shows the relative importance of resolutions – Bel V remains a private law institution. This clearly contradicts the resolutions that were adopted at the time.

That is why we have submitted a number of other amendments. With our amendments, we aim to better define the outsourced tasks of Bel V and transform the institution into a foundation of public benefit, in accordance with the Chamber Resolutions of 2007 and 2010. Amendments No. 5, 6 and 7. Members of the majority, you can still think about and approve these amendments.

Also regarding the separation between the responsibilities of the licensing holders and the safety authorities, and the broad interpretation of the concept of “physical control”, we consider that the draft law does not meet. An amendment has also been submitted.

One of Greenpeace’s most critical remarks is about transparency. We wanted to respond to the comments of Greenpeace and immediately also apply the Aarhus Convention in Belgium. The draft law does not fully follow that treaty. This is why amendment No. 4 submitted again.

That amendment aims to make a policy statement subject to a public participation procedure and a strategic environmental impact assessment, as required by the Aarhus Convention. In this way we build sufficient guarantees so that the position of other public authorities is also known and taken into account. In addition, we provide for a ten-year review and a review of that policy statement.

Mr. Minister, at first you wanted to comment on this, but you were stopped for a moment by CD&V, who thought that this could not be done. We deeply regret this. You can correct this by supporting our amendment.

Mr. Minister, colleagues, my group may find itself in a reform and improvement of the control and inspection of the safety of the Belgian nuclear installations, but we find that the bill lacks in terms of transparency and does not make a clear separation between the responsibilities of the license holders and the safety authorities. We will abstain from voting.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, first and foremost, I must say that we see a very different approach in the field of nuclear security in this legislature. I have had the pleasure of sitting in the Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety in the previous legislature. Well, then we saw there, strangely enough, almost only the Minister responsible for Energy and almost never Mrs. Milquet. This legislature, with the regularity of one hour, we have also been able to welcome the Minister of Internal Affairs, who came to explain his policy and the policy of the FANC. That positive evolution is the result of the growing interest in nuclear safety and that is absolutely necessary.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s be serious. I just heard here the criticism that the director of the FANC, which must be involved in a significant degree with what happens in the nuclear power plants, has experience with nuclear power plants. I am glad that the FANC is led by someone who knows things from the inside. There would be nothing worse than picking someone from a completely different sector to control the nuclear power plants. The very fact that the predecessor of Mr. Bens also came from the same stall and had the knowledge to perform his work correctly, seems to me important.

With this text, we are taking an important step forward. Those who were able to stay until the end of the hearing will be able to testify that a number of interesting points came out.

I must conclude that one of the parties who asked the hearing the hardest, unfortunately, could ask little to no questions and could not stay until the end, but it should be so, each must do what he or she wants.

The draft law is largely based on the experience of the past years. The legal framework for nuclear safety has been formed in a number of major steps. At the end of the 1950s there was a first design, which has lasted forty years. In 1994, a new design was introduced, which after a few years also needed changes. Since 2009 there have been requests from the FANC to strengthen the legal framework, to adapt it, to evaluate it and to ensure that greater progress can be made in this area.

I also understand that this step has not been taken since 2009. I am pleased that the Minister has addressed the file to ensure that those amendments are included in the draft. There have indeed been two resolutions, in 2007 and 2010, on nuclear safety and the functioning of the FANC, but there has not happened much with it for a very long time. Now, however, they are used to a significant extent to update the framework. This demonstrates a greater sense of responsibility in managing this file: it is recognized that steps need to be taken.

A second element is that in 2013 we ordered an IRRS mission to see how it was with the policy. Ms. Temmerman recently referred to the findings on the hydrogen enclosures in the power plants. The mission applauded the FANC for the way it handled that file. Of course, from that mission also came a number of recommendations that we had to work on.

The present draft provides a solution to three of those recommendations and provides a basis for the fourth recommendation.

The first recommendation concerns the responsibility of the license holder. Anyone who has a permit for a nuclear power plant must, in some cases, establish an internal physical inspection service. The principle remains, of course, that the person who holds the license will continue to bear that responsibility as well. That was not really so clearly promoted in the law in the past, but it is now anchored by the government in the draft. That is a good thing, because it is first and foremost the licensee who must assume his responsibility and cannot shift it to an internal service. That internal service can perform many tasks, but the responsibility remains, of course, with the licensee.

A second element is the position of the FANC in relation to that recognised institution.

The present draft ensures that a number of tasks can be carried out by a recognised body, but only if it is specifically established for that purpose. We are talking about Bel V. It prevents the simple delegation of tasks to other recognised bodies without a clear implementing decision.

Third, when it comes to carrying out a number of things, it is important that the FANC can also issue binding guidelines so that one has to comply with them. It also has the knowledge for that.

The fourth element concerns that for which a basis is created, but which is not yet fully implemented. One of the recommendations of the mission was that a national policy on radiation protection should be developed.

This recommendation has never been developed in the past. With this law, we make it possible for that implementation to take place and that a policy is assigned for it on the proposal of the FANC.

Indeed, there have been proposals and amendments aimed at allowing the FANC to only give an opinion on that policy framework. Fortunately, however, they have not been taken into account, allowing the FANC as a knowledge centre to provide the necessary advances in this area. We are, of course, looking forward to how this will take further form.

The framework is an important framework. At the same time, we must also know that especially in the implementation of the framework, the so-called ARBIS, the difference is made.

I have understood that the Minister ⁇ intends, in close consultation with Parliament, to take the necessary steps to ensure that Parliament remains properly involved. You know that I am officially Vice-President, in practice Co-Vice-President, and very often simply Chairman of the Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety. I will be happy to follow the file with you.

Our group is pleased with this design. It indicates that there is a sense of responsibility, that in the evaluations things happen and that experience in the workplace is started. We hope that this is the methodology with which we will work in the coming years. We don’t want to wait forty years or ten years. We want to adjust when necessary and take responsibility.

Our group supports the design with pleasure.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Temmerman, Mr. Wollants, I thank you for your presentations.

The discussion initiated by Ms. Temmerman is almost literally reflected in the committee’s report, in particular the Government’s response to the comments made. Therefore, I will not repeat this here and refer to the report of the committee.