Commission Regulation (Euratom) 2025/974 of 26 May 2025 on the application of Euratom safeguards

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, and in particular Articles 77, 78, 79 and 81 thereof,

Having regard to the approval of the Council (1),

Whereas:

(1) Commission Regulation (Euratom) No 302/2005 (2) defines the nature and extent of the requirements referred to in Articles 78 and 79 of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (hereinafter ‘the Treaty’).

(2) In view of the increasing quantities of nuclear materials produced, used, carried, recycled and designated to be disposed of in the Community, and of the development of trade in these materials, it is essential to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of safeguards. The nature and the extent of the requirements referred to in Article 79 of the Treaty and set out in Regulation (Euratom) No 302/2005 should therefore be brought up to date in the light of developments, particularly in the fields of nuclear and information technology.

(3) Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and the Community are parties to Agreement 78/164/Euratom (3) with the International Atomic Energy Agency in implementation of Article III(1) and (4) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Agreement 78/164/Euratom entered into force on 21 February 1977. It was later supplemented by Additional Protocol 1999/188/Euratom (4), which entered into force on 30 April 2004.

(4) Agreement 78/164/Euratom contains a particular undertaking entered into by the Community concerning the application of safeguards on source and special fissile material in the territories of the States which have no nuclear weapons of their own and which are parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

(5) The procedures stipulated by Agreement 78/164/Euratom are the result of wide-ranging international negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency on the application of Article III(1) and (4) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. These procedures were approved by the Board of Governors of that Agency.

(6) The Community, France and the International Atomic Energy Agency are parties to an Agreement for the application of safeguards in France (5). That Agreement entered into force on 12 September 1981. It was supplemented by an Additional Protocol (6), which entered into force on 30 April 2004.

(7) In the territory of France some installations or parts thereof as well as certain materials are liable to be involved in the production cycle for defence needs. Special safeguard procedures should therefore be applied to take account of these circumstances.

(8) Nuclear Cooperation Agreements (NCAs) are agreements for cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy which are concluded between the Community and third countries. They aim to facilitate nuclear trade, research and development, or other cooperative activities of mutual interest to the parties in connection with the peaceful use of nuclear energy, while abiding by the commitments and policies of the Community. Under Article 77(b) of the Treaty, the Commission should satisfy itself that, in the territories of the Member States, the provisions relating to supply and any particular safeguarding obligations assumed by the Community under such an agreement are complied with. This Regulation addresses specific aspects related to the reporting of nuclear materials as specified in certain NCAs, but does not cover items other than nuclear material.

(9) To ensure the effectiveness of safeguards, it is essential to incorporate safeguard considerations early in the planning and design processes for new installations as well as for major modifications and decommissioning of existing installations.

(10) To ensure the efficiency of safeguards, the nature and extent of the requirements for reporting nuclear materials and declaring the basic technical characteristics of installations should take into account the suitability of the nuclear material and installation to be used for non-peaceful purposes, without prejudice to any particular safeguarding obligations assumed by the Community under an agreement concluded with a third country or an international organisation.

(11) The Communication to the Commission of 30 June 2022, ‘European Commission digital strategy – Next generation digital Commission’ (7) stresses the importance of structuring data access and exchange by the Commission and the Member States. As part of that strategy, the Commission aims at enabling cross-border digital interaction, interoperability and digital modernisation of public administrations. Against this background and to enhance the efficiency of safeguards, reports and declarations should be submitted electronically.

(12) This Regulation should provide for a more graded approach and thus for burden reduction for operators. Where relevant, different provisions are included throughout this Regulation, commensurate with the strategic value of nuclear materials and related installations and activities.

(13) The provisions on security rules set out in Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2015/443 (8) and in Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2015/444 (9) should apply to information acquired under this Regulation without prejudice to Regulation (Euratom) No 3 of 31 July 1958 (10).

(14) The Commission should make every effort to protect commercial, technological and industrial secrets as well as other confidential information coming to its knowledge in the application of this Regulation.

(15) The inspections and other safeguards related activities performed by the Commission inspectors in accordance with Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty should be confined to the attainment of the objectives under Chapter VII of the Treaty in line with the principles set out in its Article 84, second subparagraph.

(16) The Commission should provide timely relevant feedback on the information provided by operators, such as the installation-specific list of essential equipment and residual structures. Considering that in many cases this depends not only on the Commission, the Commission should strive to obtain the necessary feedback from third parties, as applicable, and share it with the operators and Member States concerned.

(17) Up-to-date particular safeguard provisions at relevant installations are important for the implementation of safeguards. In that light the Commission should continue to adopt particular safeguard provisions after close consultation with the operators and Member States concerned, paying particular attention to ensuring that they are up-to-date. To the extent possible, the Commission should strive to have particular safeguard provisions adopted before the installation is to start its operations.

(18) The application of this Regulation should be evaluated within 10 years of its entry into force in light of the technological progress in the nuclear industry and developments in information technologies. However, under special circumstances, this Regulation might need to be revised before that evaluation, for example, to comply with any particular safeguarding obligation assumed by the Community under an agreement concluded with a third State or an international organisation.

(19) In the interest of legal certainty, Regulation (Euratom) No 302/2005 should be repealed,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

CHAPTER I

SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS

Article 1

Scope

This Regulation shall apply to any person or undertaking setting up or operating an installation for the production, separation, reprocessing, storage, disposal or other use of nuclear material.

It shall not apply to holders of end products, such as alloys or ceramics, used for non-nuclear purposes which incorporate nuclear materials that are in practice irrecoverable, nor to holders of mineral materials other than ores, and related processed substances, which are used for non-nuclear purposes and not for obtaining source material.

Article 2

Definitions

For the purpose of this Regulation:

(1) ‘non-nuclear-weapon Member States’ means Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, and Sweden;

(2) ‘nuclear-weapon Member State’ means France;

(3) ‘third country’ means any State which is not a member of the Community;

(4) ‘nuclear material’ means ores, source materials or special fissile materials as defined in Article 197 of the Treaty;

(5) ‘ores’ means ores as defined in Article 197, point 4, of the Treaty and as specified in the EAEC Council Regulation No 9 (11);

(6) ‘categories’ (of nuclear material) are natural uranium, depleted uranium, uranium enriched in uranium-235 or uranium-233 to less than 20 %, uranium enriched in uranium-235 or uranium-233 to 20 % and above, thorium, plutonium, and any other material specified by the Council in accordance with the provisions of Art 197 of the Treaty;

(7) ‘waste’ means nuclear material in concentrations or forms which make the nuclear material not recoverable for practical or economic reasons, for which no further use is foreseen and which may be disposed of;

(8) ‘retained waste’ means waste, generated from processing or from an operational accident, that is measured or estimated on the basis of measurements, that has been transferred to a specific location within the material balance area from which it can be retrieved, and that is deemed to be not recoverable for the time being;

(9) ‘conditioned waste’ means waste in which nuclear material, measured or estimated on the basis of measurements, has been conditioned in such a way (for example, in glass, cement, concrete or bitumen) that it is not suitable for further nuclear use;

(10) ‘discards to the environment’ means nuclear material, measured or estimated on the basis of measurements, that has been irrevocably discarded into the environment as the result of a planned discharge and in such a way that it is not suitable for further use;

(11) ‘disposal’ means the emplacement of waste, spent fuel or any other nuclear material in an installation without the intention of retrieval;

(12) ‘spent fuel’ means nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in and permanently removed from a reactor core; spent fuel may either be considered as a usable resource that can be reprocessed or may be disposed of if no further use is foreseen;

(13) ‘item’ means an identifiable unit such as a fuel assembly or a fuel pin;

(14) ‘batch’ means a portion of nuclear material handled as a unit for accounting purposes at a key measurement point and for which the composition and quantity are defined by a single set of specifications or measurements; the nuclear material may be in bulk form or contained in a number of items;

(15) ‘batch data’ means the total weight of each category of nuclear material and, in the case of plutonium and uranium, the isotopic composition when appropriate; for reporting purposes the weights of individual items in the batch shall be added together before rounding to the nearest unit;

(18) ‘key measurement point’ means a location where nuclear material appears in such a form that it may be measured to determine material flow or inventory, including but not limited to, the places where nuclear material enters, leaves or is stored in, material balance areas;

(19) ‘book inventory’ of a material balance area means the algebraic sum of the most recent physical inventory of that material balance area, and of all inventory changes that have occurred since that physical inventory was taken;

(20) ‘physical inventory’ means the sum of all the measured batch quantities or derived estimates of batch quantities of nuclear material on hand at a given time within a material balance area, obtained in accordance with specified procedures;

(21) ‘material unaccounted for’ means the difference between the physical inventory and the book inventory;

(22) ‘shipper/receiver difference’ means the difference between the quantity of nuclear material in a batch as measured at the receiving material balance area and the quantity as stated by the shipping material balance area;

(23) ‘source data’ means those data, recorded during measurement or calibration or used to derive empirical relationships, which identify nuclear material and provide batch data, including: weight of compounds; conversion factors to determine weight of element; specific gravity; element concentration; isotopic ratios; relationship between volume and manometer readings; and relationship between plutonium produced and power generated;

(25) ‘hot cell’ means a cell or interconnected cells totalling at least 6 m3 in volume with shielding equal to or greater than the equivalent of 0,5 m of concrete, with a density of 3,2 g/cm3 or greater, outfitted with equipment for remote operations;

(26) ‘site representative’ means any person, undertaking or entity designated by a non-nuclear-weapon Member State as being responsible for the declaration referred to in Article 6(1);

(28) ‘Location Outside Facilities’ (LOF) means a location not covered under the definition set out in point 27(a) where source material or special fissile material is held or customarily used in amounts of one effective kilogram or less;

(29) ‘national Location Outside Facilities’ means a particular LOF comprising holders of small amounts of nuclear material in line with criteria agreed between the Member States where the material is held and the Commission;

(30) ‘Catch All MBA’ (CAM) means a particular LOF comprising small amounts of nuclear material according to criteria set out in Annex I-N;

(31) ‘closed-down’ means, when referring to an installation, that it has been verified that operations have been stopped and that all nuclear material subject to Euratom safeguards has been removed;

(32) ‘under decommissioning’ means, when referring to an installation, that activities on dismantling, or recovery and removal of nuclear material or the removing or rendering inoperable of essential equipment are ongoing with the aim of decommissioning the installation;

(33) ‘decommissioned’ means, when referring to an installation, that it has been verified that all nuclear material subject to Euratom safeguards has been removed and residual structures and equipment essential for using the installation for purposes other than disposal of nuclear material which is no longer subject to Euratom safeguards have been removed or rendered inoperable so that processing or utilization of nuclear material is no longer possible;

(34) ‘operator’ means any person or undertaking, including any organisation, planning to set up or legally responsible for setting up or operating an installation;

(35) ‘equivalence principle’ means that a particular safeguard obligation applying to a quantity of nuclear material may be transferred to another quantity of nuclear material, subject to equivalence criteria;

(36) ‘equivalence criteria’ means specific criteria to be fulfilled with regard to the quantity, category, isotopic composition, physical form, chemical form and material state of nuclear material in order to apply the equivalence principle;

(37) ‘proportionality principle’ means that, when nuclear material subject to a particular safeguard obligation is mixed or transformed in a given proportion with nuclear material not subject thereto, the product, by-product, waste or losses generated from processing is subject to the particular safeguard obligation in the same proportion;

(38) ‘pool accounting’ means a specific accounting method whereby a unique obligation code (pool code) is used to declare book inventories and physical inventory listings to the Commission pursuant to Articles 14 and 15, although the nuclear material may be subject to various particular safeguard obligations;

(39) ‘accountancy pool’ means the scope within which the application of pool accounting has been authorised in one or several material balance areas.

CHAPTER II

BASIC TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND PARTICULAR SAFEGUARD PROVISIONS

Article 3

Declaration of the basic technical characteristics

For installations referred to in Article 2, point (27)(c), the provisions of Articles 27 and 28 apply.

For installations referred to in Article 2, point (29), the provisions of Article 37 apply.

For new installations referred to in Article 2, point (27)(a), a preliminary declaration shall be submitted to the Commission and the Member State concerned as soon as the main design options are defined to enable the inclusion of safeguards considerations early in the installation’s planning stage.

Article 4

Time-limits for the initial declaration of the basic technical characteristics