Considerations on COM(2012)561 - Community system for registration of carriers of radioactive materials

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dossier COM(2012)561 - Community system for registration of carriers of radioactive materials.
document COM(2012)561 EN
date September 28, 2012
 
(1) Article 33 of the Treaty requires Member States to lay down the appropriate provisions to ensure compliance with the basic safety standards for the protection of the health of workers and the general public against the dangers arising from ionising radiation.

(2) The basic safety standards for the protection of the health of workers and the general public against the dangers arising from ionising radiation are established by Council Directive 96/29/Euratom of 13 May 1996[5]. That Directive applies to all practices which involve a risk of ionising radiation emanating from an artificial or a natural radiation source, including transport.

(3) In order to ensure compliance with the basic safety standards persons, organisations or undertakings are subject to regulatory control by the authorities of the Member States. For that purpose Directive 96/29/Euratom requires Member States to submit certain practices involving a hazard from ionising radiation to a system of reporting and prior authorisation or to prohibit certain practices.

(4) Transport being the only practice of a frequent cross-border nature, carriers of radioactive materials may be required to comply with requirements related to reporting and authorisation systems in several Member States. This Regulation replaces those reporting and authorisation systems in the Member States with a single registration system valid across the European Atomic Energy Community (hereinafter the ‘Community’).

(5) For carriers by air and sea, such registration and certification systems already exist. Council Regulation (EEC) No 3922/91 of 16 December 1991 on the harmonization of technical requirements and administrative procedures in the field of civil aviation[6] lays down that air carriers need a specific air operator certificate for the transportation of dangerous goods. For transports by sea, Directive 2002/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2002 establishes a Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system[7]. The certificates issued by the civil aviation authorities and the reporting system for maritime vessels are deemed to satisfactorily implement the reporting and authorisation requirements of Directive 96/29/Euratom. Registration of air and sea carriers under this Regulation is therefore not necessary to enable Member States to ensure compliance with the basic safety standards in these transport modes.

(6) Carriers of radioactive material are subject to a number of requirements of Union and Euratom legislation as well as international legal instruments. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (TS-R-1) and the Modal Regulations for the Transport of Dangerous Goods continue to apply directly or are implemented by Member States under Directive 2008/68/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 September 2008 on the inland transport of dangerous goods[8] for road, rail and inland waterway transport. The provisions of this Directive are, however, without prejudice to the application of other provisions in the fields of occupational safety and health and environmental protection.

(7) In order to ensure uniform conditions for implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for the control by the Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers.