Congres over nucleaire veiligheid gehouden (en)

Met dank overgenomen van Litouws voorzitterschap Europese Unie 2e helft 2013 i, gepubliceerd op maandag 4 november 2013.

As a continuation of the EU-Asia dialogue on nuclear safety, the two-day long Second ASEM Seminar on Nuclear Safety “International Instruments for Ensuring Nuclear Safety” started on 4 November in Vilnius.

When welcoming participants of the event, the President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė i stressed that nuclear power could be safe and friendly to the environment only if the highest standards of safety and security were met.

“Every country in the world must comply with nuclear safety standards,” the President of Lithuania said.

Lithuania’s Presidency of the EU Council attaches special importance to ensuring nuclear safety worldwide.

“Nuclear power development is an integral part of the effort to ensure that international instruments for ensuring nuclear safety are applied,” the Lithuanian Foreign Vice-Minister Rolandas Kriščiūnas said on behalf of the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius in his address to the participants of the event. “The ultimate goal is to enhance nuclear safety at the global level, which will inevitably lead to a certain strengthening of the existing international instruments.”

The European Commissioner for Energy Günther Oettinger i and Denis Flory, Deputy Director-General for Nuclear Safety and Security of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), delivered keynote addresses during the official opening. The seminar focuses on national and regional instruments facilitating implementation of nuclear safety. The participants are sharing best practices in the field of regional cooperation. An example of such cooperation in Europe - the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) - can set an example of regional cooperation to Asia.

The Second ASEM Seminar on Nuclear Safety is co-organised by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the governments of Japan and Singapore. The seminar is an important event of Lithuania’s Presidency of the EU Council. The First ASEM Seminar on Nuclear Safety was held in Singapore in June 2012.

The participants of the event represent more than twenty European and Asian countries as well as the European Commission, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), and other international organizations.