2014 WENRA Spring Meeting

Members WENRA Spring Meeting 2014 Lucerne Switzerland (©WENRA)
Members WENRA Spring Meeting 2014 Lucerne Switzerland (©WENRA)

 

At the Spring Meeting of the Western European Nuclear Regulators' Association WENRA in Lucerne/Switzerland the heads of the European nuclear authorities have confirmed their leading role in defining and implementing up-to-date safety requirements for nuclear power plants.

WENRA’s Reactor Harmonization Working Group (RHWG) presented the latest progress in the revision of the WENRA Safety Reference Levels (SRL) for existing reactors. The SRLs are being revised to ensure that they include the lessons learned from the nuclear accident in Fukushima Daiichi.  This means an update of the SRLs regarding natural hazards, containment integrity, accident management and periodic safety reviews.

A three month consultation period during which all interested stakeholder could make comments on the proposals was recently concluded. In a final stage, the revised SRLs will be taken into final consideration by all WENRA members. They are planned to be published before the 2014 WENRA Autumn Meeting in Sweden.

The participants of the Lucerne meeting underlined the importance of the implementation of the SRLs. Therefore it was suggested to introduce a monitoring-tool for the supervision and harmonization of the implementation in the WENRA countries.

Furthermore the WENRA members  approved on a Waste and Spent Fuel Storage Report from the Working Group on Waste and Decommissioning (WGWD).

To enhance the organisational structure and to further increase WENRA’s visibility the plenary meeting appointed Antoni Gurgui, Commissioner of the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), and Frederik Hassel, Deputy Director General at the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) as Vice-Chairs. “They enable a shared workload for the Chair in everyday matters and in representative tasks”, said WENRA Chair Hans Wanner, “but their most important function will be as my partners for the exchange of ideas and strategic plans between the official plenary meetings of WENRA.”

WENRA Spring Meeting 2014 Lucerne Switzerland (©WENRA)
WENRA Spring Meeting 2014 Lucerne Switzerland (©WENRA)