Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, Report under the Joint Convention by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Second Review Meeting in May 2006

The Federal Government will continue to meet Germany’s existing international obligations, par- ticularly with regard to fulfilment of the Joint Convention. In submitting this report, the Federal Re- public of Germany is demonstrating its compliance with the Joint Convention and ensuring the safe operation of facilities for the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste, including the de- commissioning of nuclear installations. At the same time, there is still a need for future action in order to maintain the required high standards of safety and ensure disposal.
The report to the Joint Convention closely follows the guidelines regarding the form and structure of national reports. As such, it is divided into sections which address the individual articles of the Convention as prescribed in the guidelines. An introduction considering the historical and political development of nuclear power use is followed by a separate commentary on each individual obli- gation. As suggested in the Guidelines Regarding National Reports, statements made in the report tend to be of a generic nature, although plant-specific details are given wherever necessary in or- der to illustrate compliance with the requirements of the Convention.
In order to demonstrate compliance with the obligations, explanatory comments are given on the pertinent national laws, ordinances and standards, and descriptions are provided of the manner in which essential safety requirements are met. In the current national report, special emphasis is placed on describing the licensing procedure and state supervision, as well as the measures ap- plied by the operators at their own responsibility for maintaining an appropriate standard of safety.
The report contains a list of nuclear facilities currently in operation as defined by this Convention, including an overview of the safety-relevant design characteristics of those facilities, classified ac- cording to their management of spent fuel or radioactive waste, together with a list of decommis- sioned and dismantled facilities, plus a comprehensive list of the legal and administrative provi- sions, statutory regulations and guidelines in the field of nuclear power which are relevant to the safety of the facilities as defined by this Convention and which are referred to in this report.
The second German national report does not merely include modifications of the first report but
provides updated information to form a comprehensive overall description of the current status. Wherever the report goes into more detail on certain Articles as a result of the questions posed on the first report and of the findings of the First Review Meeting and where major amendments have been made due to the developments, this is marked in the margin.
The information provided by the report applied as at the deadline of 30 April 2005 unless expressly specified otherwise.
In the view of the German Federal Government, the contaminated industrial sites of Wismut AG that were taken over from the former GDR are not subject to the reporting obligations according to Article 3, Paragraph 2. Still, the ecological restoration activities of Wismut GmbH are presented in a separately attached report.