On 17 and 18 June 2010 the Brussels Nuclear Law Association (BNLA) (a private Association which has been formed by persons active in Belgium in the nuclear field and which brings together these actors with representatives of international institutions as well as with the European and international nuclear industry based in Brussels) co-organised with the European Commission a workshop hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee on the Prospects of a Civil Nuclear Liability Regime in the framework of the European Union.
This workshop follows up on a legal study prepared at the request of the European Commission, which points out a wide disparity of legal regimes applicable in the different EU Member States in the field of nuclear civil liability. Reactions to this study were solicited from the depositaries of the main international civil nuclear liability conventions and from representatives of specific European countries where different civil nuclear liability regimes apply.
The challenges to the present nuclear liability regimes are outlined by representatives of the academic world, the insurers, the Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear industry and other stakeholders. Particular attention is given to the question of the nuclear liability regime and the impact of EC competition rules on state aid. Moreover, the meeting focused on possible solutions for the future : a generalization of adherence to certain existing international conventions or an intervention on EU level in the field of the nuclear civil liability.