Driving Forces and Priorities in the Hungarian Radioactive Waste Management

Hungary, being a candidate state to the European Union, pays particular attention to the measures that are typically considered as good practice within the EU when developing and implementing its national program for the safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste. The Public Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (PURAM) has been designated to carry out the multilevel tasks in the field of radioactive waste management. In accordance with changes in infrastructure, Hungary is about to make significant strategic and technical decisions. There are several technical priorities for the coming years, such as improving the existing L/ILW repository, construction of a new repository for L/ILW, extension of the interim storage facility for spent fuel and setting up a revised back-end policy. Preparations for decommissioning of the nuclear facilities have to be developed as well. The paper outlines the main problem areas as well as the approach to managing radioactive wastes. It will be concluded that priorities can be set, but key dates and deadlines will always contain an element of uncertainty due to public and political acceptance problems.