The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management was adopted on 29 September 1997 in the Vienna Diplomatic Conference. Estonia signed the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management 05 January 2001. Estonian Parlament ratified the convention 19 October 2005. Estonia deposited the instrument of accession to the Joint Convention on 03 February 2006. The convention will entry into force 04 May 2006.

On 8 December 1997 Belgium has signed the Joint Convention. The Belgian legislator has expressed its consent with the obligations resulting from the Convention via the Law of 2 August 2002. The ratification was obtained on 5 September 2002. The Convention became effective on 4 December 2002, or 90 days after the Ratification Act had been deposited. Belgium belongs to the group of Contracting Parties having at least one operational nuclear generating unit on their territory.

Over the past forty years, the development of the technology needed to isolate radioactive waste in underground rock systems has been found to be a formidable problem. This is especially the case in connection with high-level waste (HLW) after its removal from operations in nuclear power plants. There is also the additional problem of isolating low- and intermediate-level waste (LILW).

Answers to questions raised by other contracting parties under the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management were prepared by the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration, the Kr_ko NPP, the Agency for Radwaste Management and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Spatial Planning.

Response to Questions Posted To Canada in 2006

Press Release - DOE Seeks Public-Private Sector Expressions of Interest for Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Initiative

Our basic position is that the outcomes of policy-making in radioactive waste management (RWM) should be driven by the will of the people through democratic processes. Achieving this inclusiveness requires good practices to increase local influence on what is essentially a national policy process. However inclusiveness poses significant practical problems; can society afford lengthy and costly consultation processes, often perceived as inefficient and ineffective?

The European Atomic Energy Community (“Euratom”) is a regional organisation, as referred to in Article 39(4) of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. It became a party to the Convention on 2 January 2006. This report is submitted in compliance with Articles 30 and 32 of the Convention for the Second Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties, to be held in Vienna from 15 to 26 May 2006.

This research on &quote;Guidance on the selection of PTA tools for stakeholders involved in radioactive waste governance&quote; was performed under the umbrella of COWAM2-'Work Package 1' (WP1). Through a dialogue on enhancing involvement at a local level, WP1 allows local stakeholders to examine the issues they face in building a democratic local governance process. WP1 also tests how Participatory Technology Assessment (PTA) methods can offer a consensual framework and a platform for deliberative co-decision among scientific and societal actors at the local level.