European Court of Auditors Urges Commission to Update Nuclear Safety Cooperation Strategy

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has told the European Commission to adopt a clear, updated strategy for international nuclear safety cooperation, according to an ECA audit summarized by World Nuclear News on 5 March 2026. The audit, described in the summary, assesses the Commission’s effectiveness in supporting nuclear safety cooperation with non-EU countries and frames a direct recommendation for a strategic update.

The ECA’s nuclear-safety audit appears alongside at least two other recent ECA outputs that have prompted sharp reactions from civil-society groups. Transparency Eu, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and foodwatch all published immediate responses to separate ECA work on funding transparency and food labelling, with each organisation using direct language about the audits and the Commission’s handling of the issues.

Transparency Eu opened its response with: "This month, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) published a scathing press release, decrying what they deemed the opaque nature of EU funding towards civil society. We beg to differ." In that piece Transparency Eu reproduces part of the Commission’s reply, quoting: "Despite the lack of a legal requirement to do so, the Commission however takes additional steps to promote transparency by proactively sharing the objectives and outcomes of funded projects on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Furthermore, interest representatives that register in the Transparency Register as not representing commercial interests, which would typically include NGOs, are required to report their lobbying activities and declare their main sources of funding as well as the amount of each contribution above EUR 10,000 exceeding 10% of their total budget and the name of the contributor in their registrations in the Transparency Register." Transparency Eu also criticises the audit’s scope, asking "What exactly, then, is the aim here? Not only does the Court omit a full -scope analysis of the FTS, but it also gives the other two essential systems only a passing mention. It never informs the reader of their purpose, what information can be gathered or how they can be improved."

The EEB framed its reaction under the headline "ECA Report: No Scandal – But the Commission Needs to Invest in a More Understandable Database" and stated that "The European Court of Auditors (ECA) report on the transparency of EU funding to NGOs confirms what civil society has stated all along: there is no evidence of irregularities or misuse in how NGOs are selected or how EU grants are used." The EEB press material quotes Nick Aiossa, Director of Transparency International EU: "The limited scope of this audit report does not give an accurate picture of NGO transparency. Instead, it highlights the Commission’s disjointed approach to publishing data across different mediums with differing levels of detail. The report clearly demonstrates the need for a centralised and comprehensive platform for the transparency of the EU’s final beneficiaries – for NGOs and commercial actors alike."

On food labelling, foodwatch described the ECA auditors’ findings bluntly: "The European Court of Auditors (ECA) report on food labelling released today underlines serious shortcomings in consumer rights in the EU." foodwatch summarised the auditors as saying "the auditors criticise the maze of food labels, misleading slogans, weaknesses in checks and penalties and the lack of harmonised standardised rules across EU countries." foodwatch added that the Food Information to Consumers regulation "was supposed to be published in 2022 but has disappeared off the agenda without any explanation" and pressed for a harmonised mandatory front-of-pack label. Suzy Sumner, Head of the Brussels Office for foodwatch International, wrote: "What’s worst about the ECA report: Rather than a lack of competence it underlines the lack of political will in the EU’s institutions to defend the rights of 450 million EU consumers, instead of the interests of a powerful industry. Food labels may often be small in size, but they are of huge importance: They shape eating habits of millions of people and therefore have a massive impact on the health of European consumers. There’s no time to lose: The Commission needs to either propose Nutri-Score as the harmonised and mandatory label across the EU or clear the way and enable member states to introduce a mandatory Nutri-Score on the national level."

Taken together, the three ECA exercises have put the Commission under pressure on two fronts: international nuclear-safety cooperation and domestic transparency and consumer-protection tools. The ECA recommendation to update the Commission’s international nuclear-safety cooperation strategy, reported by World Nuclear News on 5 March 2026, lands at the same moment civil-society groups call for a centralised beneficiary database and a definitive push on Nutri-Score, leaving policymakers with concrete reform asks and a demand for clearer, user-friendly publication of funding and regulatory data.