WIREDGOV

The Council hasadopted a directive laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation (13675/13).

The directive builds on almost two decades of research on radioprotection at international
level (International Atomic Energy Agency, World Health Organisation, Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development, etc.) and represents a significant advance in
radioprotection in a wide range of contexts including medical, industrial, power generation and waste management.

In addition, it brings together five Council directives in one single piece of legislation. These include Council Directive 96/29/Euratom laying down basic safety standards for the protection of the health of workers and the general public against the dangers arising from ionising radiation, which provides the basic radiation protection obligations to be complied with and applies to all activities involving ionising radiations. The other four more
specialised acts are the Medical Directive (97/43/Euratom), the Directive on high activity
sealed sources (2003/122/Euratom), the Directive on outside workers (90/641/Euratom),
and the Directive on public information (89/618/Euratom).

The new directive provides for a system of radiation protection under which the member
states will establish legal requirements and an appropriate regime of regulatory control
which, for all exposure situations, reflect a system of radiation protection based on the
principles of justification, optimisation and dose limitation. Furthermore, the directive
provides for radiation protection education, training and provision of information.
The member states will have four years to transpose this directive into national legislation.