ASN Report 2015

209 / 536

• The rise in the number of audit missions requested
from IAEA by the Member States and their increased
effectiveness.
The IRRS and OSART missions belong to this category.
These missions are performed using the IAEA safety
standards as the reference, which confirms the
international benchmark status of these standards.
ASN is in favour of holding these peer reviews on a
regular basis, with widespread dissemination of their
results. It is worth noting that through the provisions
of the 2009 European directive on the safety of nuclear
facilities, revised in 2014, the member countries of
the European Union are already subject to periodic
and mandatory peer reviews of their general nuclear
safety arrangements.
The IRRS missions are devoted to analysing all safety
aspects of the activities of a regulatory authority. In 2014,
ASN took part in several IRRS missions, in Hungary,
Croatia and Ireland respectively, as well as in follow-up
missions to Switzerland and Finland.
The ASNCommissioner, Margot Tirmarche, thus ran the
IAEA IRRS mission in Dublin, Ireland from30th August
to 9th September 2015. This peer audit concerned all
the activities regulated by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), the authority in charge of radiation
protection in Ireland, and by the Health Safety Executive
(HSE), the authority in charge of radiation protection of
patients. In the same way as the “IRRS” mission, which
audited ASN operations in France in 2014, the strengths
and weaknesses of the Irish nuclear safety and radiation
protection oversight systemwere benchmarked against
IAEA standards.
ASN, which had received an IRRS mission in 2006
(plus a mission to follow-up the recommendations
of this assessment) hosted another one from 17th to
28th November 2014. On this occasion, 29 foreign
auditors examined the French nuclear safety regulation
and monitoring system.
ASN has developed an action plan to address the
recommendations and suggestions received during
the IRRS mission. The follow-up mission should take
place in 2017.
The OSART missions are carried out by a team of
experts from third party countries who, for two to three
weeks, assess the safety organisation of the nuclear
power plants in operation. The actual implementation
of the recommendations and suggestions put forward
by the team of experts is verified during a follow-up
mission, 18 months after the visit by the experts. The
29th OSART mission carried out in France (in other
words one OSART mission per year) was held at the
Dampierre NPP in September 2015. As for the previous
missions, the report drafted afterwards is published on
after validation by the parties. An OSART
follow-up mission was also held in June 2015 on the
Chooz site. Finally, an OSART Corporate EDF follow-up
mission (carried out in the head office departments of
the industrial licensee) is scheduled for October 2016
(the OSART Corporate mission took place in 2014).
• Regional training and assistance missions: ASN
responds to other requests from the IAEA secretariat, in
particular to take part in regional radiation protection
training and assistance missions. The beneficiaries are
generally countries of the French-speaking community.
Thus, in 2015, ASN representatives went to Algeria,
Benin and Madagascar in turn.
• Harmonisation of communication tools. ASN
remains closely involved in the work on the INES
(International Nuclear and radiological Event Scale).
In order to contribute to the harmonisation of the use
of the INES scale when communicating about an event,
IAEA published guidelines in October 2014. These
guidelines, which include lessons learned from the
Fukushima Daiichi accident, also comprise an appendix
which gives advice on how to use the INES scale in the
event of an evolving severe accident.
In 2006, at France’s request, a working group on the
rating of radiation protection events involving patients
was set up. This field is one that is not covered by the
existing INES scale and in which France, thanks to the
experience it has acquired with the ASN-SFRO scale, is
closely involved.
In July 2012, a draft technical document was produced,
proposing amethod for rating radiation protection events
involving patients that is consistent with the INES rating
methodology. Starting in February 2013, thismethodwas
tested for eighteenmonths by a small group of countries.
In October 2014, the consolidated methodology was
presented to all the countries using the INES scale.
The documents explaining the proposed methodology
were completed in 2015 and submitted to the INES
Advisory Committee. They were distributed to all INES
correspondents at the end of 2015.
Generally speaking, ASN is closely involved in the
various actions carried out by IAEA, providing significant
support for certain initiatives, notably those whichwere
developed following the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
ASNwill thus have taken part in three of the five working
groups which drew up the full report on the Japanese
accident, coordinated by the Agency’s secretariat and
which was presented in September 2015 at the IAEA
General Conference. Furthermore, ASNCommissioner
Philippe Jamet took part in the advisory group for the
drafting of said report.
Finally and still under the supervision of IAEA, ASN
also participated in the RCF (Regulatory Cooperation
Forum) chaired by Jean-Luc Lachaume. This forumaims
to bring those safety regulators in countries adopting
209 CHAPTER 07: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2015