ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL AND INTEGRATED SAFEGUARDS IMPLEMENTATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION - THE IAEA'S EXPERIENCE

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Atomic Energy Community (European Commission or EC) are parties together with thirteen non-nuclear weapon States (NNWS) of the European Union (EU) to a safeguards agreement and are parties to two other safeguards agreements one with each of the two nuclear weapon States (NWS) of the EU. The Additional Protocols (AP) for all of these States entered into force on 30 April 2004. Additionally, all ten “accession States” of the EU (joined the European Union on 1 May 2004) have Additional Protocols concluded individually with the Agency at different points of time. Two of these “accession States” have recently acceded to the safeguards agreement and additional protocol concluded with the thirteen NNWS mentioned above. Furthermore, two States currently subject to “small quantities protocols” are also expected to accede this safeguards agreement. The European Commission as party to the safeguards arrangements for EU States participates in the implementation of the additional protocol under two modalities that result from the level of information entrustment of States of the EU to the European Commission. This legal framework sets the stage for the implementation of the additional protocol in the EU. The above situation was and continues to be a major challenge to the Department of Safeguards of the Agency where the Division of Operations ‘C’ is responsible for the implementation of safeguards in EU States. As a result, the Division has had to devote substantial resources, time and effort to plan and implement safeguards activities within a continuously evolving legal framework. This paper describes the main activities undertaken to cope with the changes in the safeguards regime in the EU and the plans to implement safeguards when other EU States accede to the safeguards agreement (and its additional protocol) concluded with the (currently, fifteen) NNWS of the EU. This paper will also describe several salient points regarding the experience gained in implementing Integrated Safeguards in accession States and the plans for implementing Integrated Safeguards in EU countries where this regime is not yet in place.