Croatia: 20 years of INIS membership

The Republic of Croatia joined the IAEA in 1993 and became an INIS member in September 1994. The Croatian INIS Centre is located in one of the regulatory bodies in charge of nuclear safety. It was first a part of the Ministry of Economy, Department for Nuclear Safety. In 2005, it moved to the State Office for Nuclear Safety and since 2011, has belonged to the State Office for Radiological and Nuclear Safety. The Croatian INIS Centre is rather small because, presently, it has only two staff – the INIS Liaison Officer and the Alternate INIS Liaison Officer. It deals with the organization, collection and preparation of inputs, as well as the use of INIS output products. In the beginning, inputs were prepared by outside users. During that time Croatia had one National ILO (in the Ministry of Economy) to coordinate all INIS work. Later, inputs were prepared by the Alternate ILO (outside of the Ministry of Economy) through an on-line platform. In 2005, Croatia established a new regulatory body, the State Office for Nuclear Safety, where INIS was located until 2010. In 2011, Croatia merged the two regulatory bodies, creating the State Office for Radiological and Nuclear Safety. The INIS Centre has been there ever since. Inputs are now prepared by the ILO. At the end of 2014, Croatia appointed a new ILO (who also had been the ILO from 2005–2010). Because of the frequent changes in ILO, due to the constant move of employees in the state administration body in charge of nuclear safety, the INIS Centre work flow was sometimes interrupted. It also affected the participation of ILOs in INIS trainings; however, INIS promotion and input never stopped. Training was mainly attended for general INIS matters and once for inputting. The ILO regularly attends the bi-annual INIS Consultative Meetings. Several experts and university teachers have been trained to search the INIS database and formulate inputs for INIS