At the second ENSREG Conference on Nuclear Safety in Europe, ASN recalled the importance of developing a joint, Europe-wide vision of nuclear safety

ASN took part in the Conference on Nuclear Safety in Europe, held in Brussels, on 11^th and 12^th June 2013. It was organised at the initiative of ENSREG and was the second event of this type, following that in which ASN took part in 2011. The conference brought together various national Authorities, regulators, licensees, universities, NGOs and a number of members of European and national parliaments. The speakers included G. Hennenhöfer, Chair of ENSREG, G. Oettinger, European Commissioner for Energy, D. Flory, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, L. Echavarri, Director General of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), along with representatives of European associations such as WENRA and HERCA. Representatives from the U.S., Japanese and Russian safety regulators were also given an opportunity to present some of the actions taken in their respective countries.

The ASN Chairman, Pierre-Franck Chevet, presented the 350 participants at this second conference with ASN’s views on emergency preparedness and on post-accident management in the wake of a nuclear accident. He underlined the scale of the work initiated since the Fukushima accident and stated that these efforts needed to be continued, more specifically in the field of emergency preparedness and response.

In addition to this, the debates and the presentations in particular concerned independence and transparency with regard to nuclear safety, considered by all the participants as the two cornerstones of the actions of any safety regulator. The debates also underlined the need to reinforce exchanges between national Authorities (within associations such as HERCA or WENRA in particular) in order to coordinate practices across Europe (safety objectives, emergency preparedness, etc.). The unprecedented scale of the stress tests and the peer review, organised across Europe in the wake of the Fukushima accident, and the desire to reinforce exchanges with the stakeholders (safety Authorities, WANO, NGOs, etc.) and with the public, were also the subject of discussions between the participants at this conference.

To find out more, consult the release published by ENSREG on 14th June 2013