The government still has the “conviction” that it is necessary to reform nuclear safety, Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher stressed on Thursday, the day after a vote by the Assembly against the disappearance of the dedicated Institute.
“There is no ambiguity about the fact that we have worked on this reform, we have a conviction about this reform and it is not a question of postponing in any way, of saying that we are not going to carry out this reform,” warned the Minister of Energy Transition to the deputies, during the examination of the nuclear reactivation bill.
The government would like to found the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), a technical expert, within the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), the central police force. But he was defeated on Wednesday by a vote in the Assembly to preserve the “dual organization” of nuclear security.
no second ballot
The deputies continue on Thursday in first reading the examination of the bill dedicated to the reactivation of nuclear energy, aimed at simplifying the construction of six new EPR reactors in France by 2035. Several left-wing deputies have asked the Government to assure the Assembly that would not organize a second deliberation on the controversial security reform in the next few hours.
The macronist rapporteur Maud Bregeon, who supported the merger between IRSN and ASN, is also “personally extremely unfavorable of a second deliberation”, because “she wants to continue this text with serenity”. Agnès Pannier-Runacher ended by saying on Thursday evening: “I am not asking for a second vote, a second deliberation.” The day before she had indicated that she had “proposed to the Senate” a “second reading” of the entire bill.
On the left, several deputies had invoked the stormy political context – the 49.3 drawn by the Government on the pension reform – to call for avoiding a new vote in the Assembly on nuclear safety. After 49.3, “have you foreseen a double scar in democracy”, returning to “a sovereign vote of the Assembly on IRSN?”, questioned the communist Sébastien Jumel.
In the rest of the text, the deputies voted on Thursday an amendment by group leader LR Olivier Marleix to recognize an “imperative reason of greater public interest” (RIIPM) to the reactors, under certain power conditions. This recognition makes it possible to streamline procedures and restrict certain legal resources. It was also introduced for certain renewable energy projects when the wind and solar acceleration law was adopted in February.
Source: BFM TV
