Nuclear Emergency Preparedness - Short Overview of EU Approaches

Shock caused by Fukushima Daiichi accident is still echoing in Nuclear Society. Lack of awareness of tsunami dreadful effects and other demonstrated phenomena remind us that, beside scientific and professional expertise in domain of nuclear accidents, we have to consider many other aspects to be better prepared for next one. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with main objective to support member countries in nuclear and radiological safety, based on the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assistance in Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency, provides different means for support in emergency situation. During emergency, European Commission (EC) also has important role in providing support to its member states, and closely cooperate with IAEA through established networks. There are different level's efforts to share operating experience from Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) events, but experience from disasters is far bigger in other industries and should to be examined and adopted to nuclear. Though, handling nuclear specific issues in NPP accidents are only small part of full scale approach to disaster. One of the latest efforts to extract different industrial sector's valuable lessons and practice from Emergency Preparedness and Response for use in nuclear sector resulted in new Nuclear Energy Agency and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (NEA-OECD) report, contributed with results of some EC Joint Research Centre (JRC) in-depth accident analyses. Although it seems that recent activities in EU are holistically aimed to "all-hazard" approach to emergency preparedness and response, this paper gives short overview of different industrial sectors approaches to disasters that could affect other EU countries safety with their possible adaptation in nuclear emergency preparedness strategy.