EU nuclear plant stress tests to start in June: Hungary

(BUDAPEST) - Stress tests on nuclear power stations in the European Union will start in June, EU president Hungary announced Wednesday, following an informal meeting of European energy ministers this week.

"The stress tests on European nuclear plants will be launched in June," the government announced on its website, citing European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, who took part in the meeting outside Budapest that ended Tuesday.

The tests, the results of which are expected in December, have to be "objective and severe", Oettinger said.

The exact criteria of the tests -- which will probably consist of six points -- will be defined next week in Brussels, he added.

The stress tests are to examine the effects of an earthquake or tsunami on nuclear plants, in the wake of the recent disaster in Japan, but whether the hypothesis of a plane crashing into a power station will also be examined had not yet been decided, Hungary said.

The German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung has said the stress tests will only deal with natural catastrophe scenarios.