Safeguards in the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic, as per the Agreement between the EU Non-Nuclear Weapon States, European Atomic Energy Community (hereinafter referred to as “Euratom”) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (hereinafter referred to as “the Agency”) and the Additional Protocol to this Agreement, has placed all source and special fissionable material under the Agency′s safeguards. Since the accession of the Czech Republic to this Trilateral Agreement, Euratom and the Agency have been sharing results of their inspections performed in nuclear facilities and at the holders of nuclear material handling nuclear materials in so called Locations Outside of Facilities.

The Agency applies integrated safeguards in the Czech Republic, as well as in most countries of the European Union. Through its verification system, the Agency ascertains that there has been no diversion of nuclear material from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Under integrated safeguards the Agency performs two types of inspections; regularly scheduled inspections and randomly scheduled inspections which may be inspections with short notification or inspections with no notification. Euratom and the Agency have gradually placed all equipment and devices applied during inspections for joint use. During last years the Agency sought to reduce the number of inspections by replacing on-site verification by a new Safeguards Remote Monitoring System. In the interim spent fuel storage at the NPP Dukovany electronic seals are used in integration with remote monitoring system which allows the operator to attach and detach seals without the need for an Agency′s inspector to be present during this operation. In 2012 monitoring of the electronic seals and the parallel internet transmission to the Agency and Euratom headquarters was set also in the spent fuels storage at the NPP Temelin.