Since June 27, the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) has participated in the Seventh Review Meeting of the Joint Convention on the safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, which has been held at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and which ends today.

Commissioner Francisco Castejón served as Chair of  one of the Country Group, being the first time that a Spaniard holds this position in the Joint Convention. Castejón  leads group 7, which includes Ukraine, Brazil, Cuba, Eritrea, Germany, Mauritania, Morocco, the Netherlands, Serbia, Syria, and Uruguay. Likewise, the commissioner has participated in all the high-level meetings held during the Convention, including those that took place to prepare the rapporteur's reports and to reach agreements on the general topics for the next Convention.

The first week of the Convention focused on the national reports of the different Country Groups, which on this occasion were eight, made up of eleven countries each. These meetings are very useful for the participating institutions given the composition of the groups in which regulators who have a long experience in waste management policies are combined with others with less implementation.

During the group 7 session, commissioner Castejón led and moderated the debate on the complicated situation in Ukraine with effects on safety in the management of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.

The Joint Convention

The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management was approved in 1997 and entered into force on June 18, 2001. The purpose of these meetings is to maintain a high degree of safety in the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste.

This Seventh Review Meeting of the Joint Convention has allowed each of the 88 Contracting Parties to present their national report and participate in the review of the reports submitted by other Contracting Parties, in accordance with the principle of the peer review.

 

*Check here to check the glossary of technical terms*