BRATISLAVA, November 30, (WEBNOVINY) — The Slovak Republic is the first EU member to join the U.S. initiative to fight against trafficking of nuclear materials. The outgoing Cabinet of Iveta Radicova on Wednesday greenlighted a common action plan of the Slovak Republic and the United States in this field. The Slovak Cabinet and the U.S. Administration will pool efforts to bolster Slovakia’s capability to prevent, detect, and efficiently respond to attempts at illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials and related technologies.
The partners have hammered out far-reaching plans for the future. Slovak laws are to be assessed and revised if necessary and the national register of radioactive sources will be updated and maintained to boost prevention. Regular checks will continue at nuclear installations in Jaslovske Bohunice and Mochovce as well as other nuclear operations. Physical security and training of staff at nuclear power plants and other nuclear operations will further be upgraded. The improvement of physical protection and material responsibility at sensitive facilities with highly radioactive sources including hospitals, industrial workplaces and the Institute of Physics at the Slovak Academy of Sciences will be finished in cooperation with the U.S. Energy Department’s initiative to eliminate global threats as well as in cooperation with other international partners.
The cooperation envisages establishment of an agency in charge for radiation protection, along with a central facility for long-term storage of abandoned radiation sources and no longer used radioactive sources. A team of experts will be trained and equipped with devices to search sites of abandoned radiation sources and unused radioactive sources.
Slovakia is planning to extend cooperation with international partners, e.g., Ukraine and Hungary, to improve detection capabilities in common training of customs officers and staff serving at the borders. Checks of ships on the Danube River are to be tightened, too. Slovakia will open a national communication center that will integrate alarm data from selected monitoring systems.
The Slovak Penal Code will be adjusted to enable criminal prosecution of illegal disposal of nuclear material and related fraud and penalties will be modified to achieve a deterring effect, respectively.
SITA