ASN Report 2017

27 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 ASN is active in international cooperation in order to advance nuclear safety and radiation protection in France and around the world. Being active means publicising our regulations and their foundations, informing our counterparts of some of our technical analyses, in order to promote the establishment of the most demanding doctrines and regulations, primarily at the European level and then within multilateral frameworks. For our facilities, this implies taking advantage of international operating experience feedback. ASN’s international actions are carried out within bilateral, European and multilateral frameworks. Significant events ASN informed the international community of the problem relating to the carbon macrosegregations detected on certain forged components of nuclear pressure equipment. Our main counterparts have taken this subject on board, firstly on a bilateral basis and then within WENRA, which led to the definition of a draft recommendation concerning the manufacturing checks to be carried out by the licensees and the changes to the manufacturing codes. ASN was also a driving force in the drafting of major documents concerning the transposition of the European “BSS” (Basic Safety Standards) Directive, more specifically application of the justification principle in the medical and radon fields. ASN was also heavily involved in the work to implement the 2009/71/ Euratom “safety” Directive, modified in 2014. The revised national action plan concerning post-Fukushima measures was submitted to the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) which is currently chaired by ASN. ASN is also vice-chair of the steering committee for the first thematic peer review of management of the ageing of power reactors and research reactors: ASN experts are also contributing to this review. This review process is considered to be a central instrument which will make it possible to promote best practices in the field. Pending its decision on continued operation, ASN will pay particular attention to the conclusions of this review. ASN is also vice-chair of the steering committee for the stress tests review to be conducted by the European Union in Belarus in 2018. Finally, ASN was in charge of organising the ENSREG 2017 conference held on 28th and 29th June 2017 in Brussels, which attracted more than 400 stakeholder representatives on the subject of nuclear safety. Four round tables tackled the issues involved in the implementation of European Directives on Waste and Safety, but also looked at possible longer-term efforts to converge the authorisation processes for power reactors, the implications of continued reactor operations beyond 40 years, notably the introduction of safety improvements resulting from the most recent standards and, finally, a new challenge following the discovery of irregularities in the production of certain major reactor components. ASN’s first thoughts on adapting oversight in the light of the risk of fraud were thus shared and enhanced: promoting the safety culture, processing of the information collected, in particular from whistle- blowers, protecting data integrity, adapting surveillance and monitoring methods, were extensively debated. From a multilateral viewpoint, ASN in 2017 became the first regulator to have hosted two international audit missions (IRRS – Integrated Regulatory Review Service) run by the IAEA and covering all of its activities. With 40 recommendations and suggestions applied (or applied “subject to completion of the currently ongoing measures” ), the audit team, chaired by William Dean (NRC – American Nuclear Regulatory Commission), concluded that France had significantly reinforced the framework of its regulation and oversight of nuclear safety and radiation protection. The IAEA did however point out that ASN needed to demonstrate vigilance with regard to the question of human resources, in the light of the safety issues facing nuclear facilities in France. The mission also suggested to ASN that its action should disseminate the safety culture in-house as broadly as possible and specify the conditions for the classification of emergency situations by the licensees. France also presented its national report at the 7th review meeting of the contracting parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety, held at the IAEA headquarters. This presentation enabled ASN to communicate about nuclear safety and radiation protection issues, in particular those which will require closer attention in the coming years: finalisation of implementation of the post-Fukushima measures; technical cooperation on the subject of carbon macrosegregations for certain nuclear pressure equipment; the irregularities detected in the production of some 07 International relations Significant events and outlook