WENRA ACTIVITIES TO HARMONISE SAFETY APPROACHES

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WENRA ACTIVITIES TO HARMONISESAFETY APPROACHES

• by André-Claude LACOSTE,
• Chairman,
• WENRA

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WENRA OBJECTIVES

• WENRA was formally created in 1999
• It assembles the Heads of the nuclear safety
  regulatory bodies from 10 countries (Belgium,
  Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
  Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK)
• it has no legal status its legitimacy comes from
  the technical knowledge of its members
• it identified 2 objectives
• to develop a common approach to nuclear safety
  and regulation, in particular within the EU
• to provide the EU with an independent capability
  to examine nuclear safety in EU candidate
  countries

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NUCLEAR SAFETY IN THE EU CANDIDATE COUNTRIES

• A first report was issued in March 1999, but it
  could not conclude on several issues
• A Task Force was established to gather updated
  information
• A Second report was issued in October 2000, with
  technical conclusions for all 7 countries with
  nuclear programmes ( Bulgaria, Czech Republic,
  Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia)
  on
• the regulatory regime and the status of the
  regulatory body
• the safety status of nuclear power plants
• Unless WENRA receives a request from the European
  Institutions, it does not intend to re-open the
  subject

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WENRA HARMONISATION WORK

• The safety approaches in WENRA countries were
  developed on a national basis
• The public expects now a higher level of nuclear
  safety
• New economic conditions are prevailing
  globalisation, deregulation of the electricity
  market
• The new situation puts safety as a top priority
• One consequence of the current situation is that
  the regulatory bodies must ensure that an
  increase in productivity will not be obtained at
  the expense of safety

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WENRA HARMONISATION WORK

• Also, the work on nuclear safety in the candidate
  countries showed that WENRA members shared common
  views
• One objective of the harmonisation work is to
  express these common views and determine how far
  this exercise can go
• WENRA created two Working Groups
• WG for existing nuclear power plants, initiated
  in 1999
• WG on waste management, just starting its work

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WENRA HARMONISATION WORK FOR POWER REACTORS

• The mandate given to the WG was as follows
• analyse the current situation, the different
  safety approaches
• explain the differences
• propose a way forward to possibly eliminate the
  differences without impairing the final level of
  safety expected
• The WG developed a methodology, approved by the
  WENRA members, and suggested to perform a pilot
  study on 6 safety issues
• safety policy
• operating organisation
• verification and improvement of the design
• beyond design basis accident management
• probabilistic safety analysis
• periodic safety review

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WENRA HARMONISATION WORK FOR POWER REACTORS

• The different steps in the pilot study were
• identification and description of the national
  requirements
• collective judgement on the situation in each
  country
• establishment of reference requirements
• comparison with the IAEA safety standards
• assessment of the differences between national
  practices and reference requirements
• The WG concluded its pilot study in September
  2002
• Also, the WG report identified further safety
  issues to supplement the pilot study and cover
  the whole range of issues to be examined,
  together with an evaluation of the corresponding
  human resources

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WENRA HARMONISATION WORK FOR POWER REACTORS

• The WENRA members will examine the report in
  November and take several decisions, among which
• do they wish to pursue the work for the other
  safety issues?
• do they envisage to implement the common
  requirements at a date to be agreed?
• do they wish to envisage harmonisation work
  beyond the identification and implementation of
  reference requirements?
• But a clear conclusion can be drawn harmonising
  safety approaches is possible, fruitful, but it
  is ambitious and time consuming
• The future will tell how far the WENRA members
  intend to go