ETSON General Assembly extended the powers of Alexander Khamaza as Vice-President

The regular meeting of the Board and session of the General Assembly of the European Technical Safety Organizations Network (ETSON) took place in Frascati (Italy) on June 26-27, 2017.

The representatives from 13 member-countries of ETSON participated in this session: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Slovenia, Switzerland, the Russian Federation, UK, Ukraine as well as an expert from European Commission. SEC NRS was represented by Alexander Khamaza, Director, and Denis Mistryugov, Head of International Relations Division.

The session attendees discussed various issues related to the work of Association, ongoing activity of ETSON working groups and expert subgroups and their results as well as the aspects required for organizing and holding of the EUROSAFE Forum on November 6-7, 2017 in Paris (France).

The ETSON members approved RATEN ICN (Romania) joining the Network.

Due to strong performance of acting ETSON Board the General Assembly unanimously decided to extent the powers of its members until October, 2018. Thus, Alexander Khamaza, Director of SEC NRS, was reelected as the Vice-President to a second term.

The next regular meetings of ETSON Board and General Assembly will take place within the frames of the EUROSAFE Forum in Paris in November, 2017.

For reference

The European Technical Safety Organisations Network (ETSON) was established in 2006 as a result of efforts made by Technical and Scientific Support Organizations of France (IRSN), Germany (GRS), Belgium (former AVN and presently Bel V) with the purpose to strengthen and maintain the current successful cooperation practice, as well as to enter the market of nuclear review in the status of a unified highly experienced expert.

At the moment, in addition to the founding organizations, the Association includes TSOs from European Union member states: AMEC (UK), ENEA (Italy), LEI (Lithuania), VUJE (Slovakia), JSI (Slovenia), MTA EK (Hungary), VTT (Finland), CV REZ (UJV) (Czech Republic), PSI (Switzerland) and organizations from non-European Union states: SEC NRS (Russia), NRA (Japan) and SSTC NRS (Ukraine).

Extensive work was performed by SEC NRS to substantiate the correspondence to the required characteristics of ETSON membership. Compliance with these criteria together with the fact that SEC NRS, as TSO of Rostechnadzor, had established itself to be the reliable partner in the framework of bilateral cooperation with several ETSON member countries, continued with SEC NRS entering the Association membership in 2012.

Since that time SEC NRS has been actively participated in the activity of all major ETSON working groups (PING, KMG, ERG, WM&D and TBRS) and expert subgroups on different fields of research in the sphere of nuclear and radiation safety.

The proposal to organize ETSON General Assembly session in Russia was one of the primary outcome of SEC NRS activity as the Association member. On July 02-03, 2013 the regular session of ETSON General Assembly took place in St. Petersburg. It was duly organized by SEC NRS. In the frames of this event the technical visit of foreign participants to the site of Leningrad NPP-2 under construction was made possible.

Alexander Khamaza, SEC NRS Director, was unanimously elected as the ETSON Vice-President at the General Assembly meeting on July 10, 2015 in Garching (Germany).

Current and continued SEC NRS involvement in ETSON work will enable the TSO of Rostechnadzor to share its experience and cutting-edge practices between mature expert organizations and, most notably from the EU, regarding the aspects of safety review (analysis) of nuclear facilities and the related activities, joint research, safety guides development. It will allow to provide the comprehensive scientific and technical support to nuclear regulatory authority of Russia more effectively.