Brussels, 25 November 2005
Full text of Document 14847/05
Suite of documents 14847/05
Subject: Working Party on Nuclear Safety
- SubGroup 2 questionnaire on safety of the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste (including decommissioning)
Delegations will find attached:
- a page setting out the background to the questionnaire and providing instructions for filling in the questionnaire,
- the questionnaire.
Background and Instructions
This questionnaire is issued pursuant to the Council Conclusions on Nuclear Safety and Safe Management of Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste (doc. 10823/04 ) and the subsequent Working Programme of the Working Party on Nuclear Safety (doc. 5574/2/05 rev 2). The aim of the questionnaire is to support the stocktaking done by Subgroup 2 of the Working Party on Nuclear Safety, with regard to international efforts to reach common approaches on the safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste, and on safety issues of decommissioning/dismantling, and how this work is reflected at the national levels of EU Member States and Acceding States.
This questionnaire is addressed to all Members States and Acceding States.
Since the second review meeting under the Joint Convention on the safety of spent fuel management and on the safety of radioactive waste management will take place only in May 2006, it was decided to approach the Member States and Acceding States in two phases:
- phase 1: Member States and Acceding States are kindly requested to first answer the questions concerning IAEA safety standards, NEA-documents and EC/Euratom-documents, by 10 February 2006;
- phase 2: Member States and Acceding States will be requested to answer the questions concerning the Joint Convention by 31 July 2006. A draft questionnaire concerning the Joint Convention is provided in the annex to the present document in order to allow Member States and Acceding States to have a good idea of its likely content and to keep it in mind when the review meeting takes place. The final version of the questionnaire concerning the Joint Convention will be sent to the Member States and Acceding States in June 2006. This final version could also be accompanied by a questionnaire concerning the WENRA reports and action plans.
Each Member State or Acceding State is requested to ensure that the most appropriate bodies be involved in the answers. In fact the questionnaire is primarily oriented towards the regulatory body (or authority) of Member States and Acceding States. However, questions also address practices of the Radioactive Waste Management Organization (RWMO) and the Radioactive Waste Producers (RWP) with regard to their use of different international documents. It is therefore suggested these organizations and/or Technical Support Organizations as appropriate are consulted in order to provide the full picture.
Some questions, i.e. on the use of the IAEA safety standards, NEA-documents and EC/Euratomdocuments, might not be fully applicable to countries without Nuclear Power Plants. Nevertheless, all Member States and Acceding States are kindly asked to answer all the questions. Member States without Nuclear Power Plants are asked to provide a comment in the "comments box" on those questions they regard as not applicable to them.
The questionnaire is developed as a "protected MSWORD" document that allows answers to be typed-in. Member States and Acceding States are encouraged to fill in the questionnaire and send it back by email to the Council Secretariat (secretariat.dgc2-energie@consilium.eu.int)in the MSWORD format.
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