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10 Février 2015
February 10, 2015
10.02.2015_No32 / News
10 Feb (NucNet): A Swiss-led initiative to further strengthen global nuclear safety by amending an international treaty has failed because of “politically motivated resistance” by some nations, Switzerland’s chief nuclear regulator has said.
Representatives from 77 countries adopted the non-binding ‘Vienna Declaration on Nuclear Safety’ at a conference in Vienna yesterday, rather than voting on a proposed Swiss amendment aimed at imposing stricter rules under the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS).
“Without the readiness of major nuclear energy producing countries to support our initiative, the goal of improving nuclear safety worldwide wasn’t achieved,” said Hans Wanner of the Swiss Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) in an online statement. “The resistance was mainly politically motivated.”
The French nuclear safety authority ASN (Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire) also issued a strongly worded statement, saying the conclusions of the conference were limited to “a non-binding political statement which does not strengthen the legal obligations of the signatory states”.
“The general objectives [approved yesterday] remain below the legally-binding dispositions of the European Directive on Nuclear Safety revised in 2014,” ASN said. “This situation might lead to a two-tier nuclear safety system in the world, which would eventually be detrimental to all countries.
“The outcome of the negotiations does not live up to the issues at stake, recalled by the Fukushima-Daiichi accident.”
But ENSI also said the adopted principles differ little from Switzerland’s original amendment. “The result is a success for Switzerland and for the world,” Mr Wanner said. “The international community has committed to continuously improving the safety of nuclear power plants around the world,” ENSI said.
ENSI said all participating countries agreed on a statement and the statement has security principles resulting from Switzerland’s initial proposal.
ENSI said key principles had been agreed including that new nuclear stations should be designed and constructed according to most recent safety standards and the latest technologies with the aim of avoiding accidents. However, if an accident were to occur, its consequences must be mitigated and significant releases of radioactive material must be prevented at an early stage.
The safety of existing nuclear facilities must be systematically and regularly reassessed. These reassessments should be used as a reference value “for the timely implementation of safety improvements achievable in a reasonable manner”.
Yesterday’s conference was initially called to consider the proposal by Switzerland to amend Article 18 of the CNS, related to the design and construction of nuclear installations.
The proposal was to add a paragraph that said: “Nuclear power plants shall be designed and constructed with the objectives of preventing accidents and, should an accident occur, mitigating its effects and avoiding releases of radionuclides causing long-term off-site contamination. In order to identify and implement appropriate safety improvements, these objectives shall also be applied to existing plants.”
The IAEA said the contracting parties had thoroughly considered the Swiss proposal and concluded it would not be possible to reach consensus on the amendment. Instead, in order to reach the same objective as the proposed amendment, parties unanimously recommended for adoption the Vienna Declaration on Nuclear Safety including principles for the implementation of the convention to prevent accidents and mitigate radiological consequences.
The declaration contains a series of principles to guide countries in the implementation of the objectives of the CNS.
While the declaration says that “reasonably practicable or achievable safety improvements are to be implemented in a timely manner,” it falls short of the original Swiss goal of requiring operators to implement back-up systems to contain radioactive contamination in the event of an accident.
The objective of the CNS, which entered into force on 24 October 1996, is to achieve and maintain a high level of nuclear safety worldwide through the improvement of national measures and international cooperation.
The IAEA said obligations for the 77 contracting parties under the CNS include submitting national reports on the implementation of their obligations under the CNS for peer review in meetings held every three years. The last review meeting took place in Vienna from 24 March to 4 April 2014, with more than 800 participants from 69 contracting parties attending.
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