Licensee Responsibility for Nuclear Power Plant Safety

H. Schneider

Simple sentences easy to grasp are desirable in regulations and bans. However, in a legal system, their meaning must be unambiguous. Article 6, Para.1 of the EURATOM Directive on a community framework for the nuclear safety of nuclear facilities of June 2009 states that "responsibility for the nuclear safety of a nuclear facility is incumbent primarily on the licensee." The draft "Safety Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants, Revision D, April 2009" of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU) (A Module 1, "Safety Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants: Basic Safety Criteria" / "0 Principles" Para.2) reads: "Responsibility for ensuring safety rests with the licensee. He shall give priority to compliance with the safety goal over the achievement of other operational objectives." In addition, the existing rules and regulations, whose rank is equivalent to that of international regulations, assign priority to the safety goal to be pursued by the licensee over all other objectives of the company.

The operator?s responsibility for nuclear safety can be required and achieved only on the basis of permits granted, which must meet legal requirements. The operator?s proximity to plant operation is the reason for his "primary responsibility." Consequently, verbatim incorporation of Article 6, Para.1 of the EURATOM Directive would only be a superscript added to existing obligations of the operator ? inclusive of a safety culture designed as an incentive to further "the spirit of safety-related actions" ? without any new legal contents and consequences. In the reasons of the regulation, this would have to be clarified in addition to the cryptic wording of "responsibility ... primarily," at the same time expressing that operators and authorities work together in a spirit of openness and trust.