EURATOM AND THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY- 15 YEARS OF SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION FOR BETTER NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS TECHNOLOGY

摘要

The European Union and the United States of America have a common interest that nuclear material is managed worldwide in the most secure way. Nuclear material safeguards should apply worldwide and meet the highest possible standards, and necessary steps need to be taken to prevent dissemination of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. The EU and the US have a long standing tradition to cooperate towards this aim. In 1995 the European Atomic Energy Community and the United States Department of Energy concluded an 'Agreement in the field of nuclear material safeguards research and development'. During the IAEA Safeguards Symposium, on 2.11.2010 a new 'Agreement in the field of nuclear material safeguards and security research and development' was signed. The Agreement of 1995 has been decisive in shaping the technical cooperation between the two organizations. It provided a platform for US laboratories to work closely with the European Commission's laboratories of the Joint Research Centre and the Euratom Safeguards Directorate, which applies many of the results in its own inspections and has helped to make some new techniques available to the IAEA. A number of significant achievements and projects selected from non-destructive assay, destructive assay, modeling and calculations, surveillance and training will be discussed. An outlook on potential future activities will be given. In addition to nuc4ear safeguards activities, which remain in the focus of the cooperation, the scope of the new Agreement includes areas such as nuclear forensics, proliferation resistance and technical aspects of export control. Increasing emphasis will also be on training activities in both nuclear safeguards and security.