Council Directive 2011/70/EuratomShow full title

CHAPTER 1 SCOPE, DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Article 1 Subject-matter

1. This Directive establishes a Community framework for ensuring responsible and safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste to avoid imposing undue burdens on future generations.

2. It ensures that Member States provide for appropriate national arrangements for a high level of safety in spent fuel and radioactive waste management to protect workers and the general public against the dangers arising from ionising radiation.

3. It ensures the provision of necessary public information and participation in relation to spent fuel and radioactive waste management while having due regard to security and proprietary information issues.

4. Without prejudice to Directive 96/29/Euratom, this Directive supplements the basic standards referred to in Article 30 of the Euratom Treaty as regards the safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste.

Article 2 Scope

1. This Directive shall apply to all stages of:

(a) spent fuel management when the spent fuel results from civilian activities;

(b) radioactive waste management, from generation to disposal, when the radioactive waste results from civilian activities.

2. This Directive shall not apply to:

(a) waste from extractive industries which may be radioactive and which falls within the scope of Directive 2006/21/EC;

(b) authorised releases.

3. Article 4(4) of this Directive shall not apply to:

(a) repatriation of disused sealed sources to a supplier or manufacturer;

(b) shipment of spent fuel of research reactors to a country where research reactor fuels are supplied or manufactured, taking into account applicable international agreements;

(c) the waste and spent fuel of the existing Krško nuclear power plant, when it concerns shipments between Slovenia and Croatia.

4. This Directive shall not affect the right of a Member State or an undertaking in that Member State to return radioactive waste after processing to its country of origin where:

(a) the radioactive waste is to be shipped to that Member State or undertaking for processing; or

(b) other material is to be shipped to that Member State or undertaking with the purpose of recovering the radioactive waste.

This Directive shall not affect the right of a Member State or an undertaking in that Member State to which spent fuel is to be shipped for treatment or reprocessing to return to its country of origin radioactive waste recovered from the treatment or reprocessing operation, or an agreed equivalent.

Article 3 Definitions

For the purpose of this Directive the following definitions shall apply:

(1)

‘closure’ means the completion of all operations at some time after the emplacement of spent fuel or radioactive waste in a disposal facility, including the final engineering or other work required to bring the facility to a condition that will be safe in the long term;

(2)

‘competent regulatory authority’ means an authority or a system of authorities designated in a Member State in the field of regulation of the safety of spent fuel or radioactive waste management as referred to in Article 6;

(3)

‘disposal’ means the emplacement of spent fuel or radioactive waste in a facility without the intention of retrieval;

(4)

‘disposal facility’ means any facility or installation the primary purpose of which is radioactive waste disposal;

(5)

‘licence’ means any legal document granted under the jurisdiction of a Member State to carry out any activity related to the management of spent fuel or radioactive waste, or to confer responsibility for siting, design, construction, commissioning, operation, decommissioning or closure of a spent fuel management facility or of a radioactive waste management facility;

(6)

‘licence holder’ means a legal or natural person having overall responsibility for any activity or facility related to the management of spent fuel or radioactive waste as specified in a licence;

(7)

‘radioactive waste’ means radioactive material in gaseous, liquid or solid form for which no further use is foreseen or considered by the Member State or by a legal or natural person whose decision is accepted by the Member State, and which is regulated as radioactive waste by a competent regulatory authority under the legislative and regulatory framework of the Member State;

(8)

‘radioactive waste management’ means all activities that relate to handling, pretreatment, treatment, conditioning, storage, or disposal of radioactive waste, excluding off-site transportation;

(9)

‘radioactive waste management facility’ means any facility or installation the primary purpose of which is radioactive waste management;

(10)

‘reprocessing’ means a process or operation, the purpose of which is to extract fissile and fertile materials from spent fuel for further use;

(11)

‘spent fuel’ means nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in and permanently removed from a reactor core; spent fuel may either be considered as a usable resource that can be reprocessed or be destined for disposal if regarded as radioactive waste;

(12)

‘spent fuel management’ means all activities that relate to the handling, storage, reprocessing, or disposal of spent fuel, excluding off-site transportation;

(13)

‘spent fuel management facility’ means any facility or installation the primary purpose of which is spent fuel management;

(14)

‘storage’ means the holding of spent fuel or of radioactive waste in a facility with the intention of retrieval.

Article 4 General principles

1. Member States shall establish and maintain national policies on spent fuel and radioactive waste management. Without prejudice to Article 2(3), each Member State shall have ultimate responsibility for management of the spent fuel and radioactive waste generated in it.

2. Where radioactive waste or spent fuel is shipped for processing or reprocessing to a Member State or a third country, the ultimate responsibility for the safe and responsible disposal of those materials, including any waste as a by-product, shall remain with the Member State or third country from which the radioactive material was shipped.

3. National policies shall be based on all of the following principles:

(a) the generation of radioactive waste shall be kept to the minimum which is reasonably practicable, both in terms of activity and volume, by means of appropriate design measures and of operating and decommissioning practices, including the recycling and reuse of materials;

(b) the interdependencies between all steps in spent fuel and radioactive waste generation and management shall be taken into account;

(c) spent fuel and radioactive waste shall be safely managed, including in the long term with passive safety features;

(d) implementation of measures shall follow a graded approach;

(e) the costs for the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste shall be borne by those who generated those materials;

(f) an evidence-based and documented decision-making process shall be applied with regard to all stages of the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste.

4. Radioactive waste shall be disposed of in the Member State in which it was generated, unless at the time of shipment an agreement, taking into account the criteria established by the Commission in accordance with Article 16(2) of Directive 2006/117/Euratom, has entered into force between the Member State concerned and another Member State or a third country to use a disposal facility in one of them.

Prior to a shipment to a third country, the exporting Member State shall inform the Commission of the content of any such agreement and take reasonable measures to be assured that:

(a) the country of destination has concluded an agreement with the Community covering spent fuel and radioactive waste management or is a party to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (‘the Joint Convention’);

(b) the country of destination has radioactive waste management and disposal programmes with objectives representing a high level of safety equivalent to those established by this Directive; and

(c) the disposal facility in the country of destination is authorised for the radioactive waste to be shipped, is operating prior to the shipment, and is managed in accordance with the requirements set down in the radioactive waste management and disposal programme of that country of destination.