Vienna: A 35-nation meeting of the UN nuclear
agency Tuesday adopted a post-Fukushima nuclear safety plan
despite gripes by influential member nations.
Germany and several other EU states as well as Canada,
Australia, Singapore and New Zealand are unhappy with the plan
because it does not obligate countries to allow outside
monitoring of their civilian nuclear programs and gives the
International Atomic Energy Agency no enforcement powers on
safety.
Board member nations adopted the document by consensus,
but not before Canada aired grievances shared by other critics
in an unusually blunt statement.
"The draft Action Plan before Governors today will be
seen as a timid response by the Agency," said Canada's
statement to the closed meeting.
Canada said the plan is neither as comprehensive as
recommended by a special post-Fukushima IAEA conference
attended by dozens of government ministers in June, nor
recommendations by IAEA chief Yakima Amman.
"It is disappointing, therefore, that the draft contains
few new commitments and little in the way of increased
transparency or safety peer reviews," said the statement.
It chastised both the agency and its member states for
missing "an opportunity to make necessary reforms to the
global nuclear safety framework."
Earlier in the debate on the plan, which began on Monday,
Ruediger Luedeking, Germany's chief IAEA representative, said
the document "does not fully meet our expectations."
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2011, 23:55