The Ministry of Energy and the Coal Industry of Ukraine has drawn up and published on its Web site a draft of the Nuclear Code of Ukraine.
According to the explanatory memorandum, the code is designed to systematize the legal standards that regulate the nuclear industry.
Adoption of the document, in particular, will promote the creation of the legal grounds for the unhampered development of nuclear technologies and their safe use, and will also bring Ukrainian legislation in the nuclear sector into line with the standards of EU legislation.
The code sets out the rights, duties and responsibilities of the state authorities, enterprises, establishments and organizations, officials, personnel, citizens and other subjects in legal relationships in the sector of nuclear energy use.
The document also regulates the issues of determining the legal grounds for the adoption of decisions on the location, design and building of the nuclear reactors, and also facilities for recycling radioactive waste and uranium fuel assemblies.
The draft of the code permits nuclear facilities for the recycling of radioactive waste (apart from storage facilities for radioactive waste disposal), sources of ionizing radiation, and property complexes for producing nuclear fuel to belong to different owners.
At the same time, uranium ore that are being stored underground, nuclear materials (apart from the products of uranium ore processing) and also the storage facilities for radioactive waste disposal may only be under state ownership.
Uranium mines, uranium ores and products of their processing can belong to different owners unless this is forbidden by the state or under the international agreements of Ukraine, as coordinated by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
