3rd activity report of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)

Recommendation 774 (1976)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 26 January 1976 (19th Sitting) (see Doc. 3654, report of the Committee on Science and Technology). Text adopted by the Assembly on 26 January 1976 (19th Sitting).

The Assembly,

1. Having examined the 3rd activity report of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), Doc. 3644 ;

2. Reiterating its conviction that recent events in the energy field have shown that it is indispensable for Western Europe to take steps to ensure that new sources of energy, and inter alia nuclear energy, make a far greater contribution to its energy balance-sheet in the early future ;

3. Aware of public concern about various safety aspects of the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes ;

4. Believing that the public has its absolute right freely to dispose of full information on any incidents which may occur in the field of the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes (e.g. in power stations, in fuel element construction or re-processing plants, in the transport of radioactive materials and/or in the stockage and disposal of radioactive wastes) ;

5. Further believing that full public disclosure of such information is not only the best but the only way to dispel any unjustified anxieties on the part of the public at large about nuclear safety,

6. Recommends that the Committee of Ministers urge member governments to instruct their representatives in the Steering Committee of the Nuclear Energy Agency of OECD (NEA) to study the possibility of following the example of the International Civil Aviation Organisation in arranging for the Agency to publish and place on sale a collection of the reports and follow-up information submitted to the Agency in pursuance of the recent agreement by the Agency's member states, establishing a system whereby, if a nuclear accident or incident occurs in a NEA member state, the authorities of that state undertake to communicate the details to NEA for transmission to the equivalent authorities in other member states.