Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, First Spanish National Report

The present document constitutes the First National Report of Spain, drawn up in order to meet the requirements of Article 32 of the Joint Convention on the safety of spent fuel management and on the safety of radioactive waste management, adopted in Vienna on 5th September 1997. This Convention, which was signed by Spain on 30th June 1998 and ratified on 11th May 1999, entered into force on 18th June 2001. This Report will be examined during the review meeting among the Contracting Parties, foreseen in Article 30 of the Convention, which will begin on 3rd November 2003, as agreed during the preparatory meeting held in accordance with article 29 on 10th-12th December 2001. The Ministry of Economy (MINECO), the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), the national radioactive waste management agency (Empresa Nacional de Residuos Radiactivos - ENRESA) and the Spanish Electricity Industry Association (UNESA) have participated in drawing up this report. Unless otherwise expressly specified, the information and data contained in this report are those available as of 31st December 2002. The Report has been drawn up taking into account the IAEA document INFCIRC/604 “Guidelines regarding the form and structure of national reports”, adopted by the Contracting Parties in accordance with Article 29 of the Convention. The order and grouping of the articles by sections adheres strictly to the requirements of the said document, and attempts have been made to ensure that the contents comply with the aforementioned directives to the extent possible. At the end of the section corresponding to each article there is an assessment of compliance by Spain of the requirements established therein, and Section K identifies those aspects that are thought to require improvement, along with the measures that are to be adopted in this respect. Except where expressly indicated to the contrary, the terminology of the Convention has been used throughout the present Report. Specifically, it should be pointed out, as regards what the Convention includes under the generic name of “nuclear facility”, that according to the Spanish legislation, and throughout this Report, this corresponds not only to what are known under the said legislation as “nuclear facilities” - which includes nuclear power plants, nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel manufacturing facilities, installations for the treatment of nuclear substances and installations for the storage of such substances – but also those others that the Spanish legislation calls “radioactive facilities”, when these are used for the production, handling or storage of radioactive material.