Nuclear Safety in Central and Eastern Europe

Nuclear safety is one of the critical issues with respect to the enlargement of the European Union towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In the context of the enlargement process, the European Commission overall strategy on nuclear safety matters has been to bring the general standard of nuclear safety in the pre-accession countries up to a level that would be comparable to the safety levels in the countries of the European Union. In this context, the primary objective of the project was to develop a common format and general guidance for the evaluation of the current nuclear safety status in countries that operate commercial nuclear power plants. Therefore, one of the project team first undertakings was to develop an approach that would allow for a consistent and comprehensive overview of the nuclear safety status in the CEEC, enabling an equal treatment of the countries to be evaluated. Such an approach, which did not exist, should also ensure identification of the most important safety issues of the individual nuclear power plants. The efforts resulted in the development of the ''Performance Evaluation Guide'', which focuses on important nuclear safety issues such as plant design and operation, the practice of performing safety assessments, and nuclear legislation and regulation, in particular the role of the national regulatory body. Another important aspect of the project was the validation of the Performance Evaluation Guide (PEG) by performing a preliminary evaluation of nuclear safety in the CEEC, namely in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Slovak Republic, and Slovenia. The nuclear safety evaluation of each country was performed as a desktop exercise, using solely available documents that had been prepared by various Western institutions and the countries themselves. Therefore, the evaluation is only of a preliminary nature. The project did not intend to re-assess nuclear safety, but to focus on a comprehensive summary of the current status of nuclear safety in the applicant countries, addressing also the impact of recently concluded or ongoing plant modernization and safety upgrading programmes. Besides the CEEC, the project includes an overview on the status of nuclear safety in the Newly Independent States (NIS) that operate nuclear power plants (Russian Federation, Ukraine, Armenia and Kazakhstan), though on a more general level. As of today, a comprehensive overview on nuclear safety in the NIS does not exist and therefore this work can be considered as an important initiative in view of more detailed investigations that might take place in the future. The project findings and results are aimed at contributing to the European Commission's opinion on the nuclear safety status in the pre-accession countries. In addition, the exercise was aimed at supporting the decision-making process of the European Commission with respect to the focus, formulation and preparation of future assistance and co-operation projects for the Central and Eastern European region to improve nuclear safety in these countries. (author)