Ukraine Declares National Policy of Nuclear and Radiation Safety in Compliance with International Standards to International Community
On 19 May 2020, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted the draft Law "On Amendments to Some Laws of Ukraine on the Safety of Nuclear Energy" (registration number 2372, dated 1 November 2019). 288 people's deputies of Ukraine voted for the adoption.
This draft Law recovers the independence of the state nuclear regulatory body in making decisions in oversight and licensing activities.
Since 2015, the SNRIU has implemented measures aimed at resolving the situation resulting from adoption of the Law of Ukraine "On Basic Principles of State Oversight (Supervision) in Economic Activities" and then adoption of the new version of the Law of Ukraine "On Licensing of Economic Activities".
Thus, Ukraine has fulfilled its international obligations to comply with the principle of the state nuclear regulatory body's independence, which is established in international conventions, Council Directive 2014/87/Euratom of 8 July 2014 and IAEA safety standards.
In the light of the adopted draft Law, Ukraine has recovered its global image as a State that fulfills its international obligations and as a State that is capable of ensuring national regulation of nuclear energy use, taking into account international requirements and EU legislation.
The draft Law, in particular, recovers the following provisions that are to be fulfilled within international obligations (in line with IAEA No. GSG-13):
- conduct annual state oversight of activities performed by entities characterized by high risk; inspect all nuclear power plants (15 power units) that belong to one economic entity, Energoatom nuclear national operator, in parallel at all sites in all areas within one scheduled measure;
- license activities in the area of nuclear energy within the timeframes and under the procedures established in accordance with the level of danger for such activities;
- establish liability of the nuclear entity for failure to comply with nuclear and radiation safety requirements;
- perform unscheduled inspections with potential termination of hazardous nuclear or radiological activities by the state nuclear regulatory body in violation of nuclear and radiation safety;
- enable the state nuclear regulatory body to make independent decisions on unscheduled (unannounced) inspections of the licensee to verify compliance with licensing conditions; stop violation of safety standards to prevent accidents with radiological consequences.