Abstracts ASN Report 2019

ASN dialogues with the other stakeholders, as was the case in 2019 for the consultation on the fourth periodic safety reviews of the 900 MWe reactors and the public debate on the National Radioactive Materials and Waste Management Plan. Listening, observing, dialoguing: this is what enables us to fully assess a situation and accurately calibrate our requirements and our oversight actions. A clear definition of priorities When carrying out its duties, ASN seeks to tailor its oversight actions to help the licensees and professionals focus their resources, which are by their very nature limited, on the essential nuclear safety and radiation protection issues. In the interest of effectiveness and in order to achieve tangible progress on subjects with major implications, it is important to clearly define the priorities: this entails implementation of the principle of proportionality, on which there is an international consensus, also called the graded approach. The position statement issued by ASN and ASND in 2019 regarding CEA‘s waste management and decommissioning strategy was a means of validating CEA’s priorities in this field. In 2020, we will be doing the same for Orano. In the same way, it is important to clearly define oversight priorities, which must be targeted in order to address specific issues. ASN has taken initiatives in this area, for example the oversight of reactor outages. After conducting an experiment in 2019, we will be adapting this oversight in 2020, involving fewer systematic prior examinations of files and more field inspections, while increasing the responsibility of the licensee. In small-scale nuclear facilities, this graded approach also led to the overhaul of the regulatory regimes and the reorientation of some of our inspections, so that our requirements and our inspections are more proportionate to the risks presented by the activities. Using our powers of regulation, enforcement and sanction, whenever necessary ASN has considerable regulatory, enforcement and sanction powers and is responsible for using themwith discernment. We do of course sometimes strongly express our disagree- ment, as was the case this year with regard to the steam line welds on the EPR reactor. We also sometimes issue enforcement measures, such as formal notices, including in the medical sector. In total, the number of cases in which we resort to enforcement measures remains small, an indication of both the good intentions of the licensees and the strength of ASN: it is able to impose most of its positions without having to use these instruments. In addition to the existing arsenal, the legislator has provided ASN with an additional sanction tool, the administrative fine. Its utilisation requires the creation of a Sanctions Committee, which will be set up in 2020. A level of skills commensurate with ASN’s roles One pre-condition for being able to exercise efficient and credible oversight is to maintain the ASN personnel’s level of skill and accumulated experience in the field of risks and nuclear matters. ASN must therefore have personnel with the skills enabling them to rigorously carry out their investigation and inspection duties with the necessary degree of expertise, more specifically in relation to those available at its technical support organisation, the IRSN. In a context of State reforms, the handover from one generation to the next and the need to maintain the attractiveness of the jobs it offers, ASN has taken steps, both quantitative and qualitative, to ensure that it can call on personnel with cutting-edge skills, who will devote a sufficiently large part of their career to the regulation and oversight of nuclear safety and radiation protection, because of the recognition that their technical experience is valued. *** The ASN teams were extensively called on in 2019 and were up to the challenge. I thank them and I thank our partners, especially the IRSN, and the members of the groups advising ASN or collaborating in its work. The ASN teams are aware of the confidence placed in them, notably by the representative bodies of the Republic. They also know that much will be expected of them in 2020, given the scale of the challenges ahead. Through their individual commitment, they will all do everything they can to be worthy of this trust and these responsibilities. ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2019 7 EDITORIAL BY THE DIRECTOR GENERAL