Radionuclide monitoring in foodstuff: overview of the current implementation in the EU countries.

The Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU) are obliged to monitor the radioactivity in the environment since the signature of the Euratom Treaty (Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community). Numerous secondary legislations derived from the Treaty can be found stating restrictions and maximum permitted levels of radionuclides in foodstuff. But to that purpose, no common integrated measurement methods are used with well-defined measurands. The present work consists of two parts. First, the current European regulations in force were collected, and then the food monitoring results, provided by the MS, were analysed.