Speaker
Description
The European Association of Competent Authorities for a safe and sustainable transport of radioactive material (EACA) is a network of European authorities responsible for the safety in transport of radioactive material. Membership in the EACA is open to all European countries, is voluntary and not legally binding. Currently, competent authorities from more than 20 countries are members of the EACA. EACA keeps close connections to the Mediterranean Network (MedNet).
The intention of EACA is to improve the implementation of the regulations for the safe transport of radioactive material based on the IAEA safety standard SSR-6 and to harmonize it within Europe. This is achieved by discussing topics possibly relevant to more than one country, by applying questionnaires for comparing the requirements and practices in different countries and by creating guidance etc.
Currently meetings are organized twice a year: one in person meeting hosted by one of the member authorities, and the other meeting being organized virtually. Some typical agenda items from the last meetings were: experiences with the shipment of SCO-III, handling of consignments not declared as dangerous goods but containing radioactive material, changes due to revised international regulations, ageing management issues, guidance on inspections, reporting on transport events and lessons learnt, tabulating variations in regulations between European countries.
The paper will describe more detailed successful past projects as well as topics from a typical current meeting agenda. It aims to explain the benefits and the limitations of such a network.
