The Elysée on Wednesday relaunched the disputed process of merging the two institutions responsible for nuclear safety in France, instructing the government to prepare a bill to this effect “by the fall”.
This operation, announced by the Presidency of the Republic three months after the rejection by Parliament of an initial merger project, would bring together in a new “major independent authority” the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), an expert in safety, and the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), responsible for decisions on power plants, according to a press release.
This authority, “whose financial and human resources would be reinforced (…) will make it possible to adapt nuclear safety in the face of the three challenges of the revival” of civil nuclear power desired by President Emmanuel Macron, added the Elysée. These “challenges” are “the extension of the existing fleet”, the “construction of new EPRs”, new generation reactors, and “the development of small innovative modular reactors”, listed the executive.
“Bill by fall”
The Nuclear Policy Council (CPN) meeting on Wednesday at the Elysée “confirmed the Government’s desire to move forward in this direction by ensuring that all the missions of ASN and IRSN are preserved”, according to the same source.
The CPN has therefore “assigned the mission to the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, to initiate consultations with stakeholders and parliamentarians with a view to preparing a bill by the fall”, added the Presidency.
This announcement came a week after the authors of a parliamentary report had recommended the merger of the two institutions, in the face of the expected increase in the workload in monitoring the power plants, present and future.
This reform, which came from the Elysée, was rejected in April by Parliament, against a backdrop of criticism of the method and concerns for transparency and the quality of the expertise. Since the announcement of the presidential intentions, the employees of the IRSN but also nuclear experts, parliamentarians, are headwind against this project of regrouping.