WRITTEN QUESTION P-0655/02 by Daniela Raschhofer (NI) to the Council. Uniform European nuclear safety standards.
Date: 2002-03-01
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU programme, European standard, International Atomic Energy Agency, nuclear power station, nuclear safety, report

C 277 E/72

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

14.11.2002

(2002/C 277 E/077)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0655/02

by Daniela Raschhofer (NI) to the Council

(1 March 2002)

Subject: Uniform European nuclear safety standards

In my written question (P-3449/01 (1)) of December 2001, with reference to the Court of Auditors’ annual
report for 2000, I drew the Commission’s attention to the problems of assessing the effectiveness of the
PHARE and TACIS programmes and the lack of uniform European nuclear safety standards.

Commissioner Christopher Patten’s reply of 1 February 2002 states that the lack of an acquis or general
criteria for nuclear safety hampers the definition of indicators for specific improvements to nuclear safety
in a beneficiary country and that the call for the Commission to introduce nuclear safety standards must be
seen in the context of the Council’s evident difficulties in approving such standards and helping to prepare
them.

I would like an answer to the following questions:

4 To what extent is the Council willing to cooperate in drawing up and preparing uniform European

nuclear safety standards?

4 When will the Council take concrete steps to establish uniform European safety standards?

4 If the Council does not intend to take any such action, how does it justify this, bearing in mind that
the atomic status quo in Europe makes uniform nuclear safety standards more necessary than ever and
that the Court of Auditors stated in its annual report on the 2000 financial year that ‘At the end of
2000, these European standards had still not been defined’?

(1) OJ C 160 E, 4.7.2002, p. 114.

Reply

(22 July 2002)

The Council would firstly like to stress that a clear distinction needs to be made between the rules
governing the safety of nuclear installations,
including nuclear power plants, and those governing
safeguard obligations applying to them as set out notably in Chapter 7 of the Treaty establishing the
European Atomic Energy Community.

‘The European Council
In paragraph 59 of its Laeken conclusions the European Council states that:
undertakes to maintain a high level of nuclear safety in the Union. It stresses the need to monitor the
security and safety of nuclear power stations. It calls for regular reports from Member States’ atomic
energy experts, who will maintain close contact with the Commission’.

The Council would like to point out that the safety of nuclear power plants is a matter not of Community
but of national competence, as the EAEC Treaty does not contain specific provisions giving powers to the
Community in this respect.

As a consequence, no specific legislation setting common safety standards for nuclear installation safety
has been developed at EU level. The competence and the responsibilities relating to the safety of a nuclear
installation lie with the State which has jurisdiction for the installation concerned. Within those national
technical and organisational
responsibilities, a high degree of convergence on the substance of
requirements and good practice has been achieved in the EU.

Moreover,
in the context of the IAEA, which issues safety recommendations, and the Convention on
Nuclear Safety, to which all Member States as well as Euratom are parties, safety arrangements in the
Member States are already subject to an in-depth peer review.

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Official Journal of the European Communities

C 277 E/73

The Council has also, on a number of occasions, stressed the importance of candidate countries achieving
a high level of nuclear safety. To that effect it adopted a report setting out a number of detailed
recommendations. Candidate countries were invited to accept
for
implementing them.

them and indicate schedules

The Council would lastly point out that it does not comment on statements by European Commission
members.

(2002/C 277 E/078)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0673/02

by Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(8 March 2002)

Subject: Dual taxation of workers 4 income tax

Article 49 of the EC Treaty outlaws restrictions on the freedom to provide services (of which dual taxation
is one). Nonetheless, the author of this question has recently been apprised of cases of Portuguese workers
adversely affected by, precisely, dual taxation.

As is well-known, a large Portuguese community exists in the Federal Republic of Germany. In some cases,
only one member of a married couple works in Germany while the other is still employed in Portugal.

As is to be expected, the spouse working in Germany pays income tax in that country. However, the
spouse who is still employed in Portugal is obliged, when submitting a tax return, to annex a declaration
of income from his or spouse, who is also considered a taxable person.

This creates an unfair situation on two fronts: firstly, one member of a couple is subject to dual taxation;
and secondly, given that German wage levels are considerably higher than those obtaining in Portugal, the
result is an automatic alteration in the tax bracket resulting in a higher percentage of income being
deducted in tax.

Can the Commission state what measures need to be taken to prevent such situations from occurring?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(23 April 2002)

The problem referred to by the Honourable Member 4 on which the Parliament has received many
petitions 4 concerns the tax situation of Portuguese working in Germany; these persons are considered to
be residents of Portugal, if their home and family are still in Portugal. Those who have moved with their
family to Germany, are only subject to German tax jurisdiction.

In the Double Taxation Agreement concluded between Germany and Portugal on 15 July 1980, double
taxation of Portuguese resident taxpayers with employment income from Germany is avoided by granting
them a tax credit. This credit allows them to deduct the tax already paid in Germany from their Portuguese
tax obligation (so-called credit method). This method is one of the two options for eliminating double
taxation which States are offered under the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) Model Convention: the other is the so-called exemption method, by which one State has the
exclusive right to tax the income, leaving that income exempt from taxation in the other State.

In the absence of harmonisation of income taxes at Community level, the choice of method is a matter for
the Member States. In making this decision, the Member States have to respect the EC Treaty, in particular
the Internal Market concept, but their choice will be valid as long as the aggregate amount of tax to be
paid in both States is no more than that which would be due if the income was taxed in the State with the
higher tax burden. Since Portugal gives full credit for the tax already paid in Germany, there is no violation
of Community law.