Quadrilateral Meeting in the Czech Republic

Mr Szabolcs Hullán, Deputy Director General for Nuclear Safety Issues of HAEA, head of the Hungarian delegation and Mr Gábor Petőfi, Head of Department, HAEA, provided an overview of the current situation of the life extension project of Paks NPP,  the transition to a 15-month operation cycle, the supervision of radioactive waste depositories, the activities of the HAEA in connection with the new build reactor units and the implementation of the safety reference levels for nuclear reactors of the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association (WENRA).

Mr Kristóf Horváth, Deputy Director General for General Nuclear Issues of HAEA, among other issues, described the changes in the Hungarian legislation, he reviewed some security matters and the cyber security methodology worked out by Hungarian experts. He highlighted that on 1 January 2016 the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority took over the tasks of the radiation protection authority.  Regarding the future, Mr Horváth said that from 2017 the HAEA is planning to introduce full-scale electronic administration. (The Hungarian delegation received many questions in connection with this plan.)

At the meeting special attention was given to the report of the Czech authority about the problem with the steam generator of Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant. The investigation took months, during the X-ray inspection of welds the experts of the Czech and the Slovak authorities worked in close cooperation with each other. The report also included the primary-secondary leakage of the steam generator in the Temelín Nuclear Power Plant.

The delegations agreed that the four countries need even closer cooperation on various international forums as well as in the thematic working groups of international organizations (e. g. International Atomic Energy Agency, European Union, WENRA) in the future.

Regarding EU issues, it is important that the Presidency of the Council of the European Union will be held by Slovakia in the second half of 2016, so the Slovak party provided information about the expected topics in the EU working group of nuclear matters.

The next quadrilateral meeting will be organized by Slovakia.