European Commission DirectorateGeneral Energy and Transport Directorate Nuclear Energy

1
European CommissionDirectorate-General Energy
and TransportDirectorate Nuclear Energy

• Christian WAETERLOOS

February 9, 2006
WENRA seminar - 9th February 2006
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Introduction

• EC appreciates WENRA's objective to enhance
  nuclear safety in Europe
• EC welcomes the extension of the WENRA "process"
  to other stages of the fuel cycle
• EC praises WENRA's key role in evaluating nuclear
  safety in the candidate countries
• EC realizes the difficulty of the work that has
  been performed and its impact on resources

WENRA seminar - 9th February 2006
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Harmonization of Reactor Safety in WENRA
Countries report

• Strong points of the Report
• EC notes that in general, high level of
  harmonization was demonstrated in the report
• Results confirmed expectation on safety
  harmonization at NPPs "implementation" level is
  higher than at "legal requirements" levels.
• European Regulators were capable to reach
  consensus on a wide range of safety issues to fix
  "reference levels"
• Limitations and difficulties encountered are
  explained

WENRA seminar - 9th February 2006
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Harmonization of Reactor Safety in WENRA
Countries report

• Questions raised concerning the Report
• There are no details available to judge how
  things evolutes since the WENRA Pilot study (Ex
  "Highest quartile" still valid to fix Reference
  Levels ?)
• Specific references to the IAEA safety standards
  or other safety documents is not given in the
  report
• Conclusions on adequacy of the established
  "reference levels" and criteria for meeting them
  have been agreed during the panel discussions
  with no details in the study

WENRA seminar - 9th February 2006
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Harmonization of Reactor Safety in WENRA
Countries report

• Questions raised concerning the Report (cont)
• No results are available per country to assess
  the distribution the compliance with the
  established safety "reference levels"
• No detailed feedback is given about the
  importance of the group discussions and the cross
  checking's
• ? Based on the content of the report and without
  being able to observe RHWG work or having access
  to the national self-assessment records, it is
  difficult to comment on the study conclusions

WENRA seminar - 9th February 2006
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Waste spent fuel storage safety reference level
and Decommissioning safety reference level reports

• The work is more advanced in RHWG than in the
  WGWD only the "reference levels" are defined and
  consists of a reformulation of Annex 1 of the
  Reactor Safety report
• Scope seems to concern only solid wastes
• The specific "reference levels" appear to be weak

WENRA seminar - 9th February 2006
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First thoughts

• Reference level could be further developed to
  become EU Safety Standard
• A dynamic process should be set for the
  definition of the "reference levels" it should
  be proposed as a more evolving concept
• Recent Eurobarometer on nuclear waste clearly
  indicated that EU citizens expect EC to play an
  important role in co-ordination of nuclear energy
  issues and to monitor activities in order to
  ensure that safety requirements are equally
  applied throughout the EU
• Improvement of transparency needed if further
  WENRA activities. It would be useful to invite EU
  interested organizations as observers/to
  participate

WENRA seminar - 9th February 2006
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Conclusions

• EU needs Safety Standard to ensure harmonisation
  between countries with nuclear facilities
• EU has to ensure a high safety level for the
  potential new nuclear countries
• EU is also to build confidence in Nuclear Safety
  with the non-nuclear countries
• EC services are ready to co-operate in order to
  improve the confidence between Member States

WENRA seminar - 9th February 2006