At the 62nd General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Member States adopted the key decisions that could strengthen the IAEA's activities in the field of nuclear science and technology, nuclear safety and security and safeguards in the coming years. The General Conference offered once again the opportunity for the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority to hold a number of top-level bilateral meetings with representatives of the authorities with which a bilateral agreement or a memorandum of understanding is in force.
The Hungarian delegation was led by Gyula
Fichtinger, Director General of the HAEA. The speech on behalf of Hungary
was delivered by Ms Andrea Beatrix Kádár, Deputy State Secretary for the
Ministry of Innovation and Technology. In her speech, Ms Kádár mentioned
the most important events related to the nuclear field that occurred in
our country since the 61th General Conference in 2017.
Under bilateral agreements and memoranda
of understanding concluded by the HAEA, regular annual meetings were held
with the leaders of the Moroccan, Polish, Serbian, Ukrainian, Romanian,
Saudi, Belarusian, Turkish, Finnish, Russian, Croatian and American nuclear
authorities. The main topic of the meetings included the evaluation of
the past year and the direction of next year's cooperation.
A Hungarian-Slovenian-Slovak-Czech quadrilateral
meeting was organized by the respective nuclear authorities, where professional
issues needing the establishment of a common approach towards the international
organizations, were primarily discussed by the participants.
Gyula Fichtinger also held a bilateral
meeting with Hans Wanner, head of the Swiss authority and chairperson of
the Western Europe Nuclear Regulators Association (WENRA), where the most
important topic was WENRA's future role and strategy.
For the first time, a meeting was held
with the Bulgarian nuclear authority and in its framework, a memorandum
of understanding was signed. At the meeting, the parties also determined
the first practical steps for cooperation. Accordingly, expert delegations
will visit each other's countries in the near future.
The Radioanalytical Reference Laboratory
of the National Food Chain Safety Office was redesignated as Collaborating
Centre of the IAEA for the fourth time.The Collaborating Centre redesignation
plaque was handed over on the margin of the General Conference.
Within the framework of the IAEA's technical cooperation programme, Mrs. Ana C. Raffo, the new head of the Division for Europe, Department of Technical Cooperation, invited the Hungarian delegation to an introductory discussion where the experts reviewed Hungary's past commitment and future opportunities in the framework of regional and national technical cooperation projects.