The Plenary of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) held its forty-first meeting between yesterday and today. The president of the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), Josep Mª Serena i Sender, and the technical director for Nuclear Safety, Rafael Cid, have participated in this meeting, held through videoconference and in which the fire protection in nuclear installations has been selected as the topic for the second Topical Peer Review (TPR) under the Nuclear Safety Directive.

In accordance with the mentioned European directive, Member States must carry out a peer review exercise on a topic that they have to approve themselves every six years. The first exercise was focused on the ageing management of nuclear power plants whereas the second, which will take place between 2023 and 2024, will focus on the aforementioned fire protection. In the next ENSREG meetings, the technical specifications and the specific calendar of action will be established, in collaboration with the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association, WENRA.

Likewise, the meeting analyzed the conclusions of the first meeting of the working group on the development of programs to carry out stress tests to countries outside the European Union that have so requested. In this case, revisions have been made out to Ukraine, Turkey and Belarus, in which exercise the CSN was involved.

Furthermore, the incorporation of Ukraine as an observer country in Plenary meetings was admitted. In this way, this country joins the regulators of Switzerland, Norway and Turkey, in this role, which is completed with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and with the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD).

Finally, the meeting concluded with the analysis of other internal affairs of this association, such as the review of the activities of the three working groups that compose it, the impressions after the first meeting of the steering committee in charge of the organization of the next ENSREG Conference - which will take place next 2021 - and the submission to the European Parliament of the report on ENSREG activities prepared by the European Commission.

ENSREG is a high-level advisory group created in 2007 at the request of the European Commission to raise recommendations to the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament on Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Waste Management. The CSN participates in its meetings as well as in ENSREG working groups dedicated to the areas of Nuclear Safety, Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Management, International Cooperation and Communication and Transparency of the regulatory body.

* Check here the glossary of technical terms *