The Fourth Review Meeting of Contracting Parties to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management took place on 14-23 May 2012 in Vienna. The 54 Contracting Parties to the Joint Convention participated in the Review Meeting. The representative delegation of Ukraine consisted of chairpersons of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management, national operator NNEGC “Energoatom”, specialists from the Ministry for Energy and Coal Industry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the Chornobyl NPP. Chairperson of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine Ms. Olena Mykolaichuk was elected a vice-president of the Review Meeting.

For two weeks the delegations have been examining and discussing more than 40 national reports on the implementation of the Joint Convention, including Ukrainian one, as well as the issue of improvement of the review process. In the center of deliberations were the issues of safe radioactive waste management, control over the used, sealed radioactive sources and spent fuel, enhancement of legal and regulatory framework, disposal of nuclear wastes, safety of decommissioning, strengthening of regional cooperation, lessons learned from the Fukushima Daici NPP accident in the context of the Joint Convention and mechanisms for improvement of the Joint Convention review process. The Fourth Review Meeting adopted a summary report in which the delegations have identified actions to be taken to further improve the implementation of the Joint Convention.