The Trial Audit Exercises Carried Out within the Context of the New Framework for Euratom Safeguards

Following the Communication of Vice-President de Palacio to the Commission, dated 30 April 2004 on the implementation of nuclear inspection and safeguards tasks within the European Union, there have been a number of discussions with the Member States on this subject. These discussions have been related to and concentrated on, among other aspects, the improvement of future nuclear safeguards effectiveness and efficiency within the Community. This debate resulted in a 'non-paper' issued by the Council¿s Working Party on Atomic Questions (WPAQ) entitled ¿A New Framework for Euratom Safeguards¿. The WPAQ non-paper describes audits as a tool that can play a role in problem resolution and to check that the relevant standards are in place and being implemented effectively. Since the publication of the WPAQ non-paper, the Commission has undertaken the necessary steps to organise trial audits in a number of nuclear facilities in order to evaluate this new tool for the verification of the performance of the operator's nuclear material accounting and control (NMAC) systems. This paper is a report on the initial planning, preparation, and organisation of the first audit trials to be carried out as part of the proposed new framework related to the nuclear safeguards approach of the Commission for nuclear installations in the European Union. It details the overall methodology used and the work associated with the audit of the specific safeguards related site procedures for Physical Inventory Taking and of the control of monitoring and measurement devices in place for the control of the nuclear material within the plants. The selection of these particular topics are explained in relation to the implementation of the Regulation 302/2005 and the overall emphasis to Physical Inventory Taking in the new framework for Euratom Safeguards.

CHARE Peter;  ADRIAN Eva;  FRANKLIN Michael;  MEYLEMANS Paul; 

2007-12-05

OPOCE

JRC40060