Implementation Of Safeguards Inspection Regime In Euratom Member States And Other Nuclear Countries

The ESARDA Implementation of Safeguards (IS) Working Group (WG) has conducted early 2021 an analysis of the different safeguards inspection models that are applied in Euratom Member States and in other major nuclear countries in order to underline the most important existing trends in the different safeguards inspection regimes. To perform this analysis, the group elaborated as a first step a 17-pages questionnaire, widely distributed to representatives of regulatory bodies responsible for safeguards matters. Twelve responses were received so far, including Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland. The paper that will be submitted to the conference will provide a first general overview on the different existing inspection regimes and the associated trends based on the analysis of the responses provided in the filled-in questionnaires and on specific exchanges that were conducted later on. As introduction, the different types of safeguards agreements and other legal binding texts related to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that are in place in each country involved in the study will be presented. The paper will then focus on the description of the large variety of nuclear facilities, location outside facilities and nuclear activities present in these countries and for which specific international and national control provisions exist. From this basis, an overview on the different kind of safeguards field activities, including safeguards inspections and complementary accesses, performed by the Atomic International Energy Agency, Euratom and-or by the national competent authorities for NPT related matters will be provided. This overview will also comprise figures associating the intensity of the verification activities, including number of inspections, to the type of nuclear facilities, location outside facilities and nuclear activities. Finally, this paper will include a description of the main identified trends and observations in terms of safeguards inspection regimes. The compiled information in this paper will allow ESARDA’s IS WG to set up a basis for possibly further studying some identified trends.