Anniversaries offer a good opportunity to look at past achievements and, more importantly, to what lies ahead. Last month the IAEA General Conference ushered in the Agency´s 50th anniversary, providing us, together with Member States and our partners, an opportunity to review the accomplishments of five decades. Today with one of those partners, the European Commission, we celebrate another significant anniversary, 25 years of formal cooperation together.
The nuclear non-proliferation regime has been put under much stress in recent years and innovative solutions are required to respond to the new challenges. The Director General of the IAEA, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei has, on several occasions, made a number of suggestions about strengthening the regime, for example, by developing multinational approaches to uranium enrichment and reprocessing.
But we also need to further enhance the effectiveness of nuclear verification, a key element being the access that Agency inspectors are given to information and locations. In this respect the "additional protocol" to safeguards agreements has, in recent years, clearly proven its worth but, as of today, only 78 countries have additional protocols in force. The Agency´s verification efforts will not be regarded as "fully effective" as long as its inspection rights remain uneven from country to country. For the nuclear non-proliferation regime to be regarded as credible, it seems clear that the comprehensive safeguards agreement and the additional protocol must become the universal standard. To that end, the European Community has been and still is playing a key role. Additional protocols are in force in all EU States, and the EU´s bilateral efforts to promote adherence of other States to the additional protocol is vital.
As we look to the future, what can be done to assure ourselves and our Member States that the IAEA, as the international nuclear verification organization, will be "staying ahead of the game"? With the global reach of our responsibilities, and the continuous need to sift through vast amounts of information, how can we be sure that we are looking in all the right places? And how do we prioritize our limited resources to the best advantage?
We have identified a number of key priorities:
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- To develop, implement and revise, as appropriate, safeguards approaches for new safeguards challenges (e.g. integrated safeguards), new facility types and new operating conditions.
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- To optimize safeguards equipment and technology development with the view of further improving present detection capability and increasing the reliability of equipment.
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- To pursue R&D activities in the development of novel technologies for the detection of undeclared activities.
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- To enhance capabilities in the area of environmental sampling.
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- To increase and intensify efforts related to the collection, analysis and evaluation of all available information on States´ nuclear programmes.
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- To maintain an efficient and secure safeguards information infrastructure.
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- To enhance the Agency´s present satellite imagery acquisition and analysis capabilities to support the verification work of the Agency.
- To enhance our cooperation with State and regional systems of accounting for and control of nuclear material.
With these priorities we have been identifying areas in which novel technologies are needed, based on either adapting existing technologies or conducting additional R&D. For example, in 2005, the Agency conducted a search for new technologies that would be capable of identifying nuclear fuel cycle process signatures. Sixty proposals were identified, and five proposals are being developed further. Additional suggestions will be required and more resources will be needed for the assessment and development of these novel technologies.
Environmental sampling has proven to be one of the most effective measures for detecting undeclared nuclear material and activities. The Agency´s Network of Analytical Laboratories (NWAL) remains essential to the Agency’s efforts. But the capabilities of the Safeguards Analytical Laboratory (SAL) may need to be enhanced for the analysis of nuclear samples and of environmental samples.
We are also working to improve our information analysis techniques. Information is at the heart of modern verification; in fact, we frequently refer to our work as being "information-driven safeguards". The safeguards conclusions that we draw every year for each State with a safeguards agreement in force are based explicitly on the evaluation of all information available to the Agency. However, with current resources and techniques there are clear limits to how much information can be evaluated - and the amount of information available is constantly growing. New technologies offer the only solution for the collection and analysis of these increasing volumes of information.
In order to continue to move forward we need the support of States and of organizations capable of helping us in the development of these advanced technologies. The IAEA does not have the means to perform its own R&D and it relies solely on such support. Over the last decades, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) has been a faithful partner. Much has been achieved in the areas of nuclear material and environmental sample analysis; non-destructive assay; containment and surveillance; and training of inspectors. The JRC is also providing significant support to the IAEA on the implementation of safeguards at the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, the largest reprocessing facility ever placed under IAEA safeguards.
Our objective is to continue to verify, in an impartial and independent manner, that States are honoring their safeguards obligations. We will take every measure to ensure the effectiveness of the safeguards system and I am glad to note that the European Commission belongs to those who are committed to supporting us in providing the international community with the best possible assurances about the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Thank you.