ASN Report 2020

Standards Committee) for the safety of radioactive substances transport, WASSC (Waste Safety Standards Committee) for the safe management of radioactive waste and EPReSC (Emergency Preparedness and Response Standards Committee) for prepared­ ness and coordination in a radiological emergency situation. Represented by ASN, France is present on each of these committees, which meet twice every year. Representatives of the various French organisations concerned also take part in the technical groups which draft these documents. Owing to the health situation, the 47th and 48th meetings of the CSS and the meetings of the five committees were held remotely. This working method, which was somewhat degraded owing to the restrictions on direct exchanges between delegates, enabled the most important work to be continued on drafting of the standards and was also the opportunity to share experience about safety management in an epidemic context. Peer review missions The IAEA proposes peer review missions in the field of safety to the Member States. These services consist of expert missions organised by the IAEA in countries which ask for them. Each team of auditors consists of experts from other Member States and from the IAEA. These audits are produced on the basis of the IAEA’s baseline safety standards. Several types of audit are proposed, notably the IRRS (Integrated Regulatory Review Service) missions devoted to the national regulatory framework for nuclear safety and the working of the safety regulator, the Operational Safety Review Team (Osart) missions, in which experts from NPP licensees take part, devoted to the safety of NPPs in operation and, finally, the ARTEMIS missions, devoted to national radio­ active waste and spent fuel management programmes. The audit results are written up in a report transmitted to the requesting country and may comprise various levels of recommendations and also recognise good practices. It is up to the requesting country to take account of the recommendations issued by the experts. A follow-up mission, the purpose of which is to verify the progress made in taking account of the recommendations, is held between 18 months and 3 years after the initial mission, depending on the type of audit. The latest ASN information concerning these missions is presented below. IRRS Missions The IRRS missions are devoted to analysing all aspects of the framework governing nuclear safety and the activity of a safety regulator. ASN is in favour of holding these peer reviews on a regular basis, with widespread dissemination of their results. It should be noted that, pursuant to the provisions of the 2009/71/ Euratom Directive amended in 2014, the Member States of the EU are already subject to periodic and mandatory peer reviews of their general nuclear safety and radiation protection oversight organisation. Owing to the global health situation, very few IRRS missions could be held in 2020 and those in which ASN should have taken part were postponed. ASN also informed the IAEA of its desire to host an IRRS mission in France concerning the full range of its activities in the first half of 2024. Osart Missions In France, the performance of Osart missions, devoted to the safety of NPP operation, is requested from the IAEA by ASN, in coordination with the licensee of the NPPs, EDF. Owing to the health crisis, the Osart mission initially scheduled for November and December 2020 in the Paluel NPP (Normandy) was postponed to the end of 2021. The regional training and assistance missions ASN responds to requests from the IAEA secretariat, in particular to take part in regional radiation protection training and in assistance missions. The beneficiaries are often countries of the French-speaking community. In addition and still under the supervision of the IAEA, ASN is also involved in the Regulatory Cooperation Forum (RCF). This forum, created in 2010, aims to establish contacts between the safety regulators of countries adopting nuclear energy for the first time and the safety regulators of the leading nuclear countries, in order to identify their needs and coordinate the support to be provided, while ensuring that the fundamental principles of nuclear safety are met (independence of the regulator, appropriate legal and regulatory framework, and so on). In 2020, in addition to a detailed review of the situation of the safety Authorities in Bangladesh, Belarus, Ghana, Morocco and Poland, the RCF reinforced its cooperation with the EU (INSC) and with “regional” safety regulator forums. Harmonisation of communication tools ASN takes part in the INES consultative committee, a body comprising experts in the evaluation of the significance of radiation protection and nuclear safety events, tasked with advising the IAEA and the INES national representatives of the member countries on the use of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES scale), and its updates. In this respect it was closely involved in the work to revise the INES scale manual recently published by the IAEA, the previous version of which was about ten years old. In addition to the updates to take account of advances in scientific knowledge, this revision also includes guidelines for communication in how to use the scale as well on how to apply it in a crisis. Generally speaking, ASN is closely involved in the various actions carried out by the IAEA, providing significant support for certain initiatives, notably those which were developed following the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident. Management of nuclear and radiological emergency situations ASN takes part in the IAEA’s work to improve notification and information exchanges in radiological emergency situations. On this subject, ASN takes part in the exercises organised by the IAEA to test the operational provisions of the Convention on the Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assistance in the case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency, called “convention exercises” or “ConvEx exercises”. These exercises, which are more specifically designed to enable all the participants to acquire practical experience and under­ stand the procedures involved in preparing and running these interventions, are of three types: ∙ the ConvEx-1 exercises, more specifically designed to test the emergency lines of communication established with the points of contact in the Member States; ∙ the ConvEx-2 exercises, designed to test particular aspects of the international framework for the preparation and performance of emergency interventions as well as provisions and tools for the assessment and prognosis in emergency situations; ∙ the ConvEx-3 exercises, aimed at assessing the emergency intervention provisions and the resources in place to deal with a severe emergency for several days. In 2020, ASN took part in two ConvEx-1 and ConvEx-2 type exercises. ASN also takes part in defining international assistance strat­ egy, requirements and means and in developing the Response Assistance Network (RANET). 200 ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2020 06 – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS