ASN Report 2017

103 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 03  - Regulations 3.1 The legal bases 3.1.1 International conventions and standards On proposals from Member States, the IAEA develops reference texts called “Safety Standards” describing safety principles and practices. They concern installation safety and radiation protection, the safety of waste management and the safety of radioactive substances transportation. Although these documents are not binding, they do nonetheless constitute references which are widely drawn on in the drafting of the national legal framework. Several legislative and regulatory provisions relative to BNIs are derived from or take up international conventions and standards, notably those of the IAEA. Two Conventions deal with safety (Convention on Nuclear Safety and Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and the Safety of RadioactiveWaste Management), while two others deal with the operational management of the consequences of any accidents (Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency). France is a contracting party to these four international conventions, detailed in chapter 7. The other conventions linked to nuclear safety and radiation protection Other international conventions, the scope of which does not fall within the remit of ASN, may be linked to nuclear safety. Of particular relevance is the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, the purpose of which is to reinforce protection against malicious acts and against misappropriation of nuclear materials. This Convention entered into force on 8th February 1987 and, as at 7th December 2016, it comprised 157 Contracting Parties. For France, these conventions are a tool to be used to reinforce nuclear safety, periodically presenting the international community with the status of the facilities concerned and the steps taken to ensure their safety. 3.1.2 European texts Several European community texts apply to BNIs. The more important ones are described below. The EURATOM Treaty The EURATOM Treaty, which was signed in 1957 and came into force in 1958, aimed to develop nuclear power while protecting the general public and workers from the harmful effects of ionising radiation. Chapter III of Title II of the EURATOM Treaty deals with health protection as linked to ionising radiation. Articles 35 (implementation of means for checking compliance with standards), 36 (information to the Commission on environmental radioactivity levels) and 37 (information to the Commission on planned effluent discharges) deal with the issues of discharges and environmental protection. The provisions regarding information of the European Commission were integrated into Decree 2007-1557 of 2nd November 2007, relative to Basic Nuclear Installations and to the regulation of the nuclear safety of the transport of radioactive substances, known as the “BNI Procedures Decree”. In particular, the decrees authorising BNI creation, prescribing final shutdown, or authorising significant modifications to the facilities leading to an increase in discharge limit values, are only issued once the opinion of the Commission has been obtained. The Directive of 25th June 2009 establishing a Community framework for the nuclear safety of nuclear facilities, amended by Directive 2014/87/Euratom of 8th July 2014 Council Directive 2009/71/Euratom of 25th June 2009 creates an EU framework for nuclear safety and paves the way for the creation of a common legal framework for nuclear safety among all Member States. This Directive defines basic obligations and general principles in this field. It strengthens the role of the national regulatory organisations, contributes to harmonising the safety requirements between the Member States in order to develop a high level of safety in the installations and encourages a high level of transparency on these issues. It comprises stipulations regarding cooperation between nuclear regulators, in particular the creation of a peer review mechanism, staff training, regulation and inspection of nuclear installations and public transparency. In this respect, it reinforces cooperation between the Member States. Finally, it takes account of the harmonisation work being carried out by the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association (WENRA), (see chapter 7, point 2.7). Directive 2014/87/Euratom of 8th July 2014 modified Directive 2009/71/Euratom of 25th June 2009 and made the following substantial improvements: ཛྷ ཛྷ concepts converging with those of the IAEA (incident, accident, etc.); ཛྷ ཛྷ highlighting of the principles of “defence in depth” and “safety culture”; ཛྷ ཛྷ clarification of responsibilities in the oversight of the safety of nuclear installations; ཛྷ ཛྷ the safety objectives for nuclear installations which stem directly from the safety requirements used by the WENRA association; ཛྷ ཛྷ a safety reassessment of each nuclear facility at least once every ten years; ཛྷ ཛྷ every six years, the organisation of peer reviews by the European counterparts on specific safety topics, along the lines of the stress tests performed in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi accident; ཛྷ ཛྷ the obligation for nuclear facility licensees and the nuclear safety authorities to inform local populations and the stakeholders.