EU Commission seeks nuke plant rules

BRUSSELS, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The European Commission is restarting its legislative efforts to set nuclear power safety standards as the energy sector makes a comeback, officials said.

With nuclear power gaining more favor as a way to cut carbon emissions in an age of global warming, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs Wednesday kicked off an effort to renew a formerly abandoned push to impose mandatory nuclear power generation safety standards, the EU Observer reported.

European nuclear safety guidelines that are currently only voluntary would become the basis of a new set of requirements under Piebalgs' proposals, the Observer reported. Piebalg said all EU states need to have similar standards in order to give legal certainty across the continent.

The European Commission wants to strengthen the role of its regulatory bodies, which for the most part are authorized by member states to grant nuclear power licenses and to supervise the siting, design and commissioning such plants, the Observer said.