From 21 to 30 March, a joint eighth and ninth Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) is taking place in Vienna. The Convention is a multilateral international treaty signed by the states operating land-based civil nuclear power plants on their territories and aims to commit the parties to subscribe to fundamental safety principles for maintaining a high level of nuclear safety. Slovenia has been a contracting party to the Convention since 1996.  

The members of the Slovenian delegation at the Review Meeting in Vienna are the representatives of the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration (SNSA) and the Permanent Representation in Vienna, accompanied by the representative of the Krško nuclear power plant (NPP). After the national presentation with emphasis on the safe operation of the Krško NPP, the delegation will attend national presentations of several other states based on the selection criteria including:

• state's importance (number of reactors and technology),
• geographical vicinity (neighbouring states),
• states with bilateral agreements signed with Slovenia,
• and other interesting states, either regarding the technology, innovative approaches, fast growth of nuclear energy use and similar.

The Review meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety is an event with large and various international attendance and therefore an opportunity for many bilateral contacts and discussions. SNSA used this opportunity to sign a new bilateral agreement with the regulatory body of the United States of America, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Both regulatory bodies signed their first such agreement thirty years ago, in 1993. With the new agreement, the parties renewed their commitments to:

• exchange of technical information,
• cooperation in nuclear safety research,
• trainings and gaining experience of experts and cooperation during emergency events.

The bilateral agreement was signed on 21 March in Vienna by the SNSA Director Igor Sirc and the NRC Chairman, Christopher T. Hanson. The suppliers of the reactors and suitable equipment for both, the Krško NPP and the Jožef Stefan Institute's research reactor situated at the Reactor Infrastructure Centre in Dol near Ljubljana, are from the USA. Therefore, the signing of the bilateral agreement is of extreme importance for SNSA, since it enables a direct contact with the supplier state of the abovementioned reactors and support systems.