ASN Report 2017

198 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 07  - International relations ASN consequently only provides support for the establishment of an adequate national framework and advises the national safety regulator, which must retain full responsibility for its oversight of the nuclear facilities. It pays particular attention to countries acquiring technologies of which it has experience in France. ASN considers that developing an appropriate safety infrastructure takes at least fifteen years before operation of a nuclear power reactor can begin in good conditions. For these countries, the goal is to set up a legislative framework and an independent and competent safety regulator with the financial and human resources it needs to perform its duties and to develop competence in terms of safety, safety and regulatory culture and management of radiological emergency situations. Vietnam In 2017, ASN oversaw the second assistance programme for Vietnam under the INSC, in order to develop the safety, safety culture and regulatory capabilities of the Vietnamese nuclear regulator, VARANS. This assistance project, which started in May 2016, is scheduled to last for three years. ASN is also involved in assistance to Vietnam via the RCF, the forum for exchanges between safety regulators, created under the aegis of the IAEA. In this context, a meeting was held on 14th and 15th June 2017 in Brussels, with a view to facilitating the sharing of experience between regulators and rationalising the assistance given to those countries looking to develop nuclear energy. 6. Outlook ASN will continue its actions within a European framework, with regard to nuclear safety and radiation protection, more particularly through bilateral cooperation agreements, but also and above all by influencing the work of ENSREG of which it is the chair. Particular attention will be paid to the thematic review on the management of the ageing of nuclear power reactors and research reactors with a power of more than 1 MWth, a review which led to the production of a national report published in December 2017. ASN will also aim to ensure that its policies and positions are influential within multilateral frameworks, notably those involving the IAEA. To this end, ASN: ཛྷ ཛྷ will continue bilateral exchanges with foreign safety regulators on regulatory practices and on priority subjects such as monitoring of the manufacture of nuclear pressure equipment; ཛྷ ཛྷ will actively take part in the work of HERCA, WENRA, the IAEA, the NEA and INRA; ཛྷ ཛྷ will present the national report to the 1st thematic peer review of ageing management (ENSREG) to be held from 14th to 18th May 2018 in Luxembourg; ཛྷ ཛྷ will contribute to the performance of stress tests on the Ostrovets NPP in Belarus; ཛྷ ཛྷ will contribute to examining the definition of technical objectives to improve safety, as related to Article 8 of the 2014 Directive; ཛྷ ཛྷ will be a driving force behind the WENRA task force which is to define a strategy document; ཛྷ ཛྷ will examine the possibility of holding a transboundary “Greater Region” conference on nuclear safety and radiation protection, in order to achieve more balanced cooperation; ཛྷ ཛྷ will present the national report within the framework of the Joint Convention (2018); ཛྷ ཛྷ will continue its involvement in the European cooperation instruments assisting third party countries in the field of nuclear safety.