The European Nuclear Regulators Group (ENSREG) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Atomic Energy Agency to cooperate on international peer review missions to EU member states.
The Euratom Nuclear Safety Directive asks EU Member States to arrange for periodic self-assessments of their national framework and regulatory authorities at least every ten years, as well as asking them to invite an international peer review within the same period.
ENSREG has recommended that in order to comply with the directive the best way forward is by cooperation between the EU Member States and the IAEA IRRS (International Regulatory Review Service) programme. For this purpose, a dedicated European programme of IRRS missions has to be developed.
In his speech at the IAEA ministerial conference on nuclear safety, director general of the IAEA Yukiya Amano said that with a system based on random selection, the Agency could conduct an international safety review of one nuclear power plant in ten throughout the world over, say, a three -year period.
