Vienna, 4 March 2024
Chair,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The candidate countries Türkiye, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina[1] and Georgia, as well as the EFTA countries Iceland and Liechtenstein, members of the European Economic Area, align themselves with this statement.
We commend Director General Grossi and the IAEA Secretariat for issuing the Nuclear Security Review. It provides valuable and insightful information on global trends and the Agency’s priorities in 2024.
The EU reaffirms the central role of the IAEA in promoting, sustaining, and strengthening the global nuclear security architecture. While the sole responsibility for nuclear security rests with a State and its competent national authorities, the Agency can provide valuable practical assistance to the Member States in building their capacities, developing guidelines, facilitating national coordination as well as regional and international cooperation.
We underline the Agency’s role in promoting the universalisation and implementation of relevant international instruments and assisting Member States in meeting their obligations and commitments.
Chair,
We must sustain our efforts, individually and collectively, to strengthen nuclear security worldwide.
The EU and its Member States reiterate their highest commitment to maintaining and strengthening effective and comprehensive nuclear security of all nuclear and other radioactive materials and facilities. This is essential for the responsible, safe and secure development of peaceful uses of nuclear technologies. We encourage all Member States to continue their efforts to strengthen nuclear security and build a robust nuclear security culture. We encourage all States, which have not yet done so to join the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and its Amendment (A/CPPNM), the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT) and the IAEA Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources and its two supplementary Guidance documents.
We also encourage all Member States to report, in a timely manner, incidents involving nuclear and other radioactive material out of regulatory control to the IAEA Incident and Trafficking Database.
It is of great concern that Ukraine has lost regulatory control over a sizable number of radioactive sources, which is yet another consequence of Russia’s war of aggression that affects nuclear security. The EU welcomes the planned IAEA support to Ukraine to help protect radioactive sources and to recover them. The European Commission Joint Research Centre is engaged in a project to establish a regional network of Nuclear Forensics capabilities and to develop National Nuclear Forensics Libraries, in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and the Republic of Moldova. This follows the IAEA’s recommendation for a System for the Identification of Nuclear or Other Radioactive Material outside Regulatory Control.
Chair,
The International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS), to be held in May, is the most important nuclear security event this year. With the forward-looking theme of “Shaping the Future”, we should aim for an ambitious outcome building on the previous ICONS conferences. The objectives agreed at the 2020 ICONS Conference remain fully relevant. Our focus should be on new nuclear security challenges and we support the work of Australia and Kazakhstan as ICONS Co-Chairs and the work of the Programme Committee towards this end
The IAEA needs timely, reliable and sufficient resources to be able to implement its activities, inter alia from the Nuclear Security Fund and the Regular Budget. The EU and its Member States remain major donors to the Nuclear Security Fund and encourage all IAEA Member States to support it.
We are pleased to announce that on 19 February 2024, a new EU Council Decision was adopted with additional 7.2 million Euros for 2024-26 to support the IAEA’s nuclear security activities in three areas: building capacity in IAEA Member States, providing assistance to Ukraine, and strengthening the participation of women through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme. With only one fourth of participants in the Agency’s training activities being women, promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment in the field of nuclear security should remain among our top priorities.
Chair,
The EU welcomes the opening of the Nuclear Security Training and Demonstration Centre (NSTDC) in Seibersdorf. It is important that its activities are sustainable and well-coordinated with the implementation of other planned assistance activities The EU underlines the complementary roles of the NSTDC and other training opportunities and programmes offered in Member States, by the European Nuclear Security Training Centre (EUSECTRA) located at the Joint Research Centre in Karlsruhe, and by the EU CBRN Centres of Excellence initiative which is building capacities in 64 partner countries.
We invite the Secretariat to continue to coordinate, in close cooperation with Member States, the various nuclear safety and security activities, and to address the interface between nuclear safety and security, while considering their differences and specific challenges.
Chair,
This year’s Nuclear Security Review underlines the evolving nature of nuclear security due to the new developments such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), the fast-paced advances in the digital world, and an increase in applications involving radioactive sources. The well-known objectives and elements of nuclear security apply also to SMRs. In this regard, the EU and its Member States actively support and participate in the IAEA’s work to further develop and complement the existing Nuclear Security Series to address the specific features of SMRs. The EU is also keen to help Member States, upon their request, to address safety, safeguards, and security measures at an early stage of the development of SMRs. We note with appreciation that nuclear security of SMRs is part of the Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative. The EU and its Member States are mindful of the need to build capacities and enhance regulatory infrastructures in particular in the embarking countries.
We welcome last year’s International Conference on Computer Security to which the EU significantly contributed with a view to strengthening cybersecurity and computer security. We would like the Nuclear Security Review to address the recommendations of this Conference and the Agency’s plans for follow-up.
With these comments, Chair, the EU takes note of the Nuclear Security Review 2024, as contained in GOV/2024/4.
Thank you, Chair.
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[1] North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.
Source – Press and information team of the Delegation to UN and OSCE in Vienna