European regulations on financial provisions for decommissioning and disposal costs

The subject of the paper is the regulations currently in force in the member States of the European Community for financial provisions for the decommissioning of nuclear power stations and for nuclear disposal, as well as the assessment of these regulations. This complex subject is discussed as follows: first the requirements which must be met in order to be able to accumulate, manage, and in case of need, make use of financial resources according to the polluter and the relevant operating period are stated. After that the regulations the individual European countries have created to establish a well structured system which meets these requirements are explained. In the third part of the paper the experience gained so far is presented, and whether there is a need for action based on the experience available. Following this will be a discussion of the regulatory possibilities and what regulatory difficulties are involved in the individual systems and, in particular, a change-over between the systems. A brief summary of the main results is the final topic in the paper. (author)