EU says 'stress tests' agreed for nuclear plants

The European Union reached agreement today to conduct "stress tests" on the continent's nuclear power plants, the bloc's energy chief Guenther Oettinger said.

Oettinger said the tests would be conducted on a "voluntary" basis.

He said they would look at whether the 153 reactors housed in half as many plants across the continent could resist earthquakes, tsunamis and terrorist attacks.

"We want to look at the risk and safety issues in the light of events in Japan," he said.

The European commission spoke after emergency talks between ministers, national nuclear safety chiefs and industry leaders that were hastily called amid rising public concern in the wake of Japan's nuclear emergency.

Oettinger said there were no existing EU rules to make the tests binding.

"Recognised experts will be responsible for carring out the tests in the course of this year," he added.

"The tests will carry such authority that the necessary consequences will be drawn from them," he added.

"We want to operate if possible with everybody on board," he said, saying the tests would be completed in 2011 and would start as soon as guidelines were reached on the criteria, reach and extent of the checks.

On the basis of the results "we want all the nuclear power plants to be reassessed in the light of events in Japan," he added.

He also said he hoped to associate neighbouring countries, Turkey, Russia and Switzerland, in the safety review.

In his letter of invitation to today's talks, Oettinger said participants would look at operations at European reactors similar to those in Japan, while taking stock of earthquake contingency planning, cooling problems, and evacuation procedures.

"EU preparedness for parallel emergencies occurring at several nuclear installations" was also on the agenda.

Japan's nuclear emergency yesterday prompted Germany and Switzerland to halt nuclear programmes with Italy taking a hard look at its new nuclear energy plans but Poland saying it would press ahead with building it first plants.

Anti-nuclear Austria had demanded stress tests across Europe.

In Germany, where anti-nuclear activists say 100,000 people protested yesterday, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the provisional shutdown for three months of seven nuclear reactors pending a safety review in light of events in Japan.

She had said the previous day that "we cannot just go back to business as usual" as events in Japan "teach us that risks that were thought to be completely impossible cannot in fact be completely ruled out."

But the head of German electricity giant RWE, Jurgen Grossmann, said on going into the Brussels talks that a nuclear-free Europe remained decades away "maybe in 80 years ... I don't think right now."