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

Greece has signed the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management on 5 September 1997. The Convention entered into force on 16 March 2000. The present report is the National Report of Greece for the Second Review Meeting to the Convention, which will take place 15-26 May 2006 at the IAEA in Vienna. The report has been prepared in accordance with the Guidelines regarding the Form and Structure of National Reports (IINFCIRC/604, 1 July 2002), established by the Contracting Parties under Article 29 of the Convention. Greece has no nuclear power plants. Spent fuel management is therefore relevant only in connection with the operation of the one research reactor GRR-1 of the National Centre of Scientific Research (NCSR) “Demokritos”. The policy and practice for the spent fuel management for GRR-1 is, to temporary store the fuel elements in dedicated storage facilities after irradiation, awaiting transfer to USA’s jurisdiction by May 2009, according to an agreement with the US Department of Energy. Radioactive waste in Greece originates from medicine, research and industry; waste with Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) result from some industrial activities as well. The management of radioactive waste is carried out on the site of origin. The national policy for the radioactive waste produced in research and medical applications is the decay storage and/or discharge. The Joint Ministerial Order 1014 (___) 94, Official Gazette No 216/B/6-03-2001 Radiation Protection Regulations” (RPR), published in 2001, is the national legislation concerning the civilian applications of the ionizing radiation and implementing the IAEA BSS and EURATOM Directives 96/29 and 97/43. In particular for the specific issue, since 1990, according to Greek legislation, an import license for a radioactive sealed source is granted by the regulatory authority, the Greek Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), under the condition that the foreign supplier certifies to take back the source when it is disused. Moreover, Greece is in the process of implementing the European Council Directive 2003/122 on the control of the high activity sealed radioactive sources and orphan sources. Since 2003 GAEC is running a program, with the scope to return all the unused and orphan sealed sources to a foreign waste management facility for recycling; the first part of the project that concerned all the old “historical” sources, has been completed in September 2005. On the occasion of hosting in Athens the Olympic Games 2004, serious improvements have been achieved in the safety and security of radioactive and nuclear material in general (e.g. upgrading of the physical protection systems, upgrading of the emergency response, collection and exportation of the unused old radioactive sources, etc). Greece attaches highest importance to international efforts to harmonise and increase all aspects of nuclear safety; In this aspect Greece has initiated projects and bilateral agreements with other countries and tries to participate and contribute to all relevant international and European activities, among which the Joint Convention on the Safety of the Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management and the Convention on Nuclear Safety.