Agreement on the content of the revised Nuclear Safety Directive has now been reached by the 28 Member States of the EU. The new directive introduces new EU-wide safety objectives, sets up a European system of peer reviews for nuclear installations and strengthens the role and independence of national regulators. The national governments will have three years to incorporate the directive into their national laws.

According to agreed text of the new Directive, Member States will have to organise two types of peer reviews: periodic self-assessments and topical peer reviews. Periodic self-assessments shall be organised with the support of international experts at least every ten years. The aim is to assess the national frameworks and regulatory authorities. The conclusions of these assessments will have to be shared with the other Member States. Topical peer reviews on the other hand will have to be performed as of 2017 and every six years thereafter on specific topics.  The directive requires that all other Member States, and the European Commission as observer, are invited to review the national assessments. The directive also imposes on Member States to take follow up measures based on the findings of the peer reviews.

The revised directive aims at strengthening the independence and the powers of national regulators. It also sets more detailed requirements on transparency, requesting in particular more public information on the safety of nuclear installations. EU nuclear safety objectives are introduced to further reduce safety risks. According to the directive national nuclear safety frameworks shall ensure that nuclear installations are designed, sited, constructed, commissioned, operated and decommissioned with the objective of preventing accidents and, should an accident occur, that consequences are mitigated and radioactive releases are avoided.