Switzerland approves international nuclear safety convention

The Swiss parliament on Tuesday ratified an international convention aimed at improving safety in nuclear fuel and waste management.

The Swiss parliament on Tuesday ratified an international convention aimed at improving safety in nuclear fuel and waste management.

The House of Representatives followed the Senate and unanimously approved ratification of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management.

Sixty-two states have already adopted the joint convention, which is based on a code of practice defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The document is considered an “incentive convention” and does not interfere with national legislation. But the convention does establish a binding reporting system for contracting parties.

Signatory countries are asked to implement the safety measures enshrined in the waste convention and to report on their national inventories of radioactive waste and spent fuel.

One of the main objectives of the international agreement is to ensure that “at all stages of spent fuel and radioactive waste management, there are effective defences against potential hazards.”

Switzerland’s five nuclear power plants generate 40 percent of the country’s annual electricity consumption.

Even though the country has not seen a major nuclear accident to date, nuclear energy remains a controversial political issue. In September, an anti-nuclear lobby group presented a total of 240,000 signatures to force a national vote on the issue.

The group wants to shut down the plants within a decade and another ten years added to the existing moratorium on the construction of new nuclear plants.

Critics of the initiative says the demands are unrealistic as anti-nuclear activists have failed to spell out just what kind of energy should replace nuclear power.

From staff and wire reports.