This Directive is legally binding and covers all the aspects of spent fuel and radioactive waste management, from production through to long-term disposal. It reiterates the prime responsibility of the producers and the ultimate responsibility of each Member State to ensure the management of the waste produced on its territory, making sure that the necessary measures are taken to guarantee a high level of safety and to protect workers and the general public against the dangers of ionising radiation. It clearly defines the obligations regarding the safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste and requires that each Member State adopt a legal framework for safety issues, making provision for the creation of: ∙ a competent regulatory authority with a status that guarantees its independence from the waste producers; ∙ authorisation procedures involving authorisation applications examined on the basis of the safety cases required from the licensees. The Directive regulates the drafting of the national spent fuel and radioactive waste management policies to be implemented by each Member State. More specifically, it requires each Member State to establish a legislative and regulatory framework designed to set up national programmes for the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste. The Directive also contains provisions concerning transparency and participation of the public, the financial resources for management of spent fuel and radioactive waste, training, as well as obligations for self-assessment and regular peer reviews of the national framework and the competent regulatory authority. These aspects constitute major advances in reinforcing the safety and accountability of spent fuel and radioactive waste management in the UE. The Energy Transition for Green Growth Act (TECV Act) and the Ordinance of 10 February 2016 ensured that the provisions of the Directive were transposed into French law. 2.4 The Euratom European Directive on Radiation Protection Basic Standards Directive 2013/59/Euratom of 5 December 2013 on Radiation Protection Basic Standards applies to the justification, optimisation and limitation of doses, regulatory control, preparedness for emergency situations, training and other related fields (for example the radon risk, Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials and Construction Materials –NORM). The modifications made in 2016 and 2018 to the Defence, Environment, Public Health and Labour Codes, allowed its transposition into French law. 2.5 The European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) The ENSREG was created in 2008 and brings together experts delegated by the Member States of the EU, with the aim of supporting the European Commission in its legislative initiatives in the field of nuclear safety and radiation protection. ENSREG helped bring about a political consensus in the drafting of European Directives on nuclear safety and the management of spent fuel and waste. ENSREG also took part in the process to revise the Nuclear Safety Directive, following on from the assessment and analysis of the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident. The activities of ENSREG are underpinned by three working groups, devoted to installations safety and international cooperation (WG1), the safe management of radioactive wastes and spent fuels (WG2) and transparency in the nuclear field (WG3) respectively. ASN contributes to the work done by each of them. In accordance with the Safety Directive of 2014, ENSREG organises European thematic peer reviews. The first of these exercises concerned the management of ageing of the nuclear reactors. Each of the participating countries first of all drafted a national report, which was then examined in 2018 by experts appointed by the Member States. This examination led to the drafting of a report on the generic results and a report on the specific results per country. On this basis, the national action plans from the countries were submitted in September 2019. Updates were published in 2021. On this occasion, France published its closing report. The national report, the national action plan and the closing report for France are available on asn.fr, in both French and English. In 2020, the Member States began their work on the second thematic peer review concerning the protection of nuclear facilities against fire risks. In 2021, the work continued, notably with the drafting of the terms of reference for the peer review and the technical specifications providing the countries with guidelines for their self-assessment presented in the national reports. 2.6 The European Community Urgent Radiological Information Exchange system (ECURIE) ECURIE is one of the rapid action systems set up by the European Commission, which has an information exchange network for receiving and triggering an alert, and thus for rapidly circulating information within the UE in the event of a radioactive emergency or major nuclear accident. This system was put into place in 1987 by a Decision of the Council of the EU of 14 December 1987, notably in the wake of the Chernobyl (Ukraine) accident in 1986. This Decision came into force on 21 March 1988 and was ratified by all the Member States of the UE and a certain number of third-party countries, such as Switzerland and Turkey. 2.7 The Western European Nuclear Regulators’ Association (WENRA) WENRA was created in 1999 at the initiative of ASN and has been chaired since November 2019 by Olivier Gupta, the ASN Director General. Its members are the heads of the safety regulators of the European countries with electricity generating reactors. Other European countries, or major non-European countries with power generating reactors, take part in WENRA’s activities as either observers or associate members. WENRA’s actions are based on experience sharing by safety regulators with a view to developing a common approach and harmonised safety rules for reactors, waste management facilities and research reactors. WENRA draws on three working groups, each with competence in a field of nuclear safety: ∙ the Reactor Harmonisation Working Group (RHWG); ∙ the Working Group on Radioactive Waste and Decommissioning (WGWD); ∙ the Working Group on Research Reactors (WGRR). For each technical topic, each of these groups defined “safety reference levels” based on the most recent safety standards, mainly from IAEA, and the most stringent nuclear safety approaches implemented within the EU. Concrete implementation of the strategy defined by WENRA for the period 2019-2023 is ongoing. In 2021, WENRA held two plenary meetings, the first remotely in April and the second –a “hybrid” arrangement– in Montrouge in October. 194 ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2021 06 – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
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