RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION : EP WANTS TO BE HEARD, SEEKS CHANGE TO LEGAL BASIS.

During the European Parliament's 15 February plenary session, MEPs called for substantial changes to be made to the proposal for a Council regulation relating to acceptable maximum levels of radioactive contamination of food following a nuclear accident and adopted, with 555 votes in favour, 62 against and 40 abstentions, a series of amendments modifying the Council's assigned role in the event of a radioactive emergency, and the proposal's legal basis.

Such amendments, however, have little value since under the terms of the Euratom Treaty's Article 31, which governs the questions of protecting the public and workers against the dangers resulting from ionising radiation, the Parliament's role is limited to that of a consultative body. Aware of this, MEPs invited the Commission to replace the proposal's current legal basis with Article 168 (public health) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), following preliminary checks carried out by the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI).

The European Commission, however, has vehemently opposed the amendments "both for institutional reasons and for reasons of substance," Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier explained. Nevertheless, in addressing the hemicycle on the previous day, he thanked the rapporteur for having drawn attention to "the important aspects of the need to strengthen medical measures concerning the radioactive contamination of food". Earlier, the rapporteur was indignant concerning the regulation's "inadequacy," saying that its values had not been updated and adapted to technological advances or the current institutional context, while at the same time the US had revised their levels in 1998 following projections concerning exposure levels and their impacts on health.

The proposal for a Council regulation, which was introduced in April 2010 by the Commission, does not suggest significant changes, as it consists primarily of codifying the unchanged provisions of three regulations adopted between 1987 and 1990 relating to radioactive contamination(1). The Commission has changed only one consideration, namely reinforcing a provision that...