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30 May 2013
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JOHAN DACKNER Senior nuclear safeguards inspector in the European Commission’s energy
directorate-general.
Fusion of skills and energy
Being a nuclear safeguards inspector is a huge responsibility,
Johan Dackner tells Ian Mundell
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MOVERS & SHAKERS
There are not many jobs
in the European Commission
that give you
the right to a special kind of
passport. “We all carry an inspector’s
card,” says Johan
Dackner, producing a set of
documents bound between
sturdy green covers. “That
authorises me to access any
nuclear installation holding
fissile material.”
Dackner is a senior nuclear
safeguards inspector in
the Commission’s energy directorate-general
in Luxembourg.
He and his colleagues
make sure that all the European
Union’s civil fissile material
– material such as uranium,
plutonium and
thorium, which is capable of
sustaining a nuclear reaction
– is in the right place, is used
for its intended purpose and
does not go missing. “In
some respects you could
liken us to accountants, but
we don’t count money, we
count uranium and plutonium
atoms,” says Dackner.
Ensuring that nuclear installations
are operated safely
and securely is usually a
matter for national authorities,
but the Euratom treaty
gives the Commission responsibility
for verifying that
nuclear proliferation is not
taking place from civil
sources. As a result, all civil
fissile material must be declared
to the Commission.
Some material is used in
nuclear power plants or research
facilities, some is undergoing
reprocessing or
stored as waste. The nuclear
safeguards directorate
checks that these declarations
are complete and consistent
on paper. Then it
sends out inspectors to
check the reality.
Most inspectors have a
background in physics or engineering,
to which the
Commission adds around a
year of training. Dackner
studied nuclear engineering
in Sweden, going on to work
at a nuclear fuel fabrication
plant and then in a reactor
training centre. The idea of
becoming a safeguards inspector
only came to him
when he saw the job advertised.
“There are 160 of us, so
it’s a very small cadre of people
doing this in the European
Union,” he says. “So
was I expecting that? No,
not at all. But I do find it
challenging and interesting.”
Physical inspection
Each inspection involves
verifying that the objects listed
are physically there, accurately
labelled and consist of
the material described. Inspecting
a nuclear reactor
might take one person one
day, while a reprocessing
plant might involve a team
working for up to a week. “If
it’s a fuel assembly, I can very
easily see that it is a fuel assembly,”
Dackner explains.
“But if it is a spent fuel assembly
that has come out of
the reactor, it will be highly
õ The European Commission has appointed Kurt Vandenberghe, a Belgian national, as director for
environment in its research department. Vandenberghe is currently the head of the private office of
Janez Potočnik, the European commissioner for environment, and was previously deputy head of the
private office when Potočnik was commissioner for science and research. Previously, Vandenberghe
served in the private office of Philippe Busquin, European commissioner for research, in 1999-2004.
He joined the Commission in 1996. He replaces Andrea Tilche, acting director, on 1 July.
õ Maria Cristina Russo of Italy has been appointed director for international co-operation in the
European Commission’s department for research and innovation. She is currently head of unit for
financial services and redress in the Commission’s department for health and consumer affairs. Russo,
who joined the Commission in 1992, also served in the secretariat-general and – like Vandenberghe –
as a member of Busquin’s private office in the Prodi administration. She replaces Laurent Bochereau,
acting director, on 1 July.
õ Hanna Pennock, a Dutch national, has been appointed acting director-general of the International
Council of Museums (ICOM), an organisation serving museum professionals. She replaces Julien
Anfruns after his return to France’s culture ministry. Pennock is scheduled to serve until the end of the
year.
õ François de Bie of the Netherlands has been elected chairman of European Bioplastics, an
association of firms producing or working with bio-based or bio-degradable plastics.
õ Send details of Movers & Shakers to info@europeanvoice.com
radioactive and stored about
nine metres underwater in a
spent fuel pond. For that, I
will need a device that allows
me to say that it still is
uranium as opposed to anything
else.”
Little personal risk is involved,
yet it is not a job to be
taken lightly. “A lot of responsibility
is placed on you
as an individual,” Dackner
says. “When on-site you have
to think on your feet, you will
be faced with a certain number
of decisions and a certain
amount of assertiveness
might be required.”
That is part of the job’s attraction,
along with the variety
of installations he has
visited over 15 years as an inspector.
“I’ve seen a width of
the nuclear power industry
that I would not have seen if
I’d been working as an engineer
specialising in one particular
aspect.”
Yet most of the time this
search for something out of
place leads nowhere. “Nuclear
operators in Europe
perform very well,” Dackner
says. “We haven’t had any
cases of diversion of nuclear
material. What we sometimes
find is that human error
will come in. Someone
will have written down the
wrong thing in an accountancy
line, and that’s what
the verifications are there
for.”
Ian Mundell is a freelance
journalist based in Brussels.
T
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IN THE MONEY A raft of legislation on financial services
POWER OF A UNION The EU’s plans for a banking union
Birthday celebrations
for Europe’s
Don’t miss out
single market
cannot hide some
persistent and
deep flaws, writes
Ian Wishart
on EV Special Reports.
Subscribe today.
There is no shortage of conflicting
views on the single
market. Some people regard
it as the greatest achievement
of the European
Union. Others doubt that it
exists. Some credit it with
doing more to bring its peoples
together than any other
development in post-war
history. Others maintain
13 that it is a painful and alltoo-clear
illustration of the
25 October 2012
EU’s inability to join up fragmented
markets and establish
the most basic of common
standards. There will
be plenty who approach next
month’s ‘20th anniversary’
celebrations with some
weariness.
The celebrations are as
much to do with wanting to
inject the single market with
LOSING THE WILL However political priorities change, global warming 15 remains a threat
fresh impetus as marking 15 a
13 September 2012
11 October true 2012 starting-point. The
DISCUSSIONS IN DOHA Will countries show their commitment to the climate-change roadmap?
20th anniversary is an approximation
to what was, step too far for many Europeans, was a bruising experience for t
YOU WIN SOME... Trade unionists demonstrate in 2006 agains
EMISSIONS TRADING The flagging price of carbon and bad press for the ETS
back in 1992, a deadline. France and the Netherlands. REUTERS
BEING PREPARED Why adapting to climate change is as important as mitigation
The single European act actually
took effect in 1987. It
SPECIAL REPORT
Twenty ye
GREEN MONEY Tying funding to environmental issues could solve budget stalemate
was inspired by the report
drawn up in 1985 by the
then European commissioner
for the internal market
EU Studies
Arthur Cockfield. That report
set out 297 measures
15
GEM OF AN IDEA OPAL looks at how national parliaments engage in EU politics
that were needed to complete
the single market by out, broken up and nation-
More subtly, the spectre of
4 October 2012
EIB INSTITUTE Applied economics and reaching out to university networks
the end of 1992. From 1986 alised. They have withdrawn an EU of variable speeds is
GENDER AND THE EU Is enough attention paid to gender issues in EU policies?
to 1992 the EU adopted from cross-border lending to up and running and threatening
the uniformity of a
nearly 280 pieces of legislation
aimed at breaking down markets. The idea of a uni-
single market. The rancour
retrench on their domestic
SPECIAL REPORT
the barriers between member
states. What the 20th talked about longer even 8-9 December, when David
tary patent, which has been of the European Council of
anniversary celebrations are than the single market itself, Cameron, the British prime
The future of food
trying to re-create is the atmosphere
of those formative drawing board (see page 16). change after failing to win
lingers frustratingly on the minister, blocked treaty
years during the European The European single currency,
which was meant to service regulation, brought
exemptions from financial
EXPENSIVE TASTES The rising cost of food
17
Commission of Jacques Delors,
and the widespread realise the single market’s home the extent to which
27 September 2012
WHAT A WASTE From field to plate to dustbin
awareness of “1992”, which potential, instead threatens the member states fall short
GROWING CONTROVERSY The battle over GM rages on
in the business world took to undermine it. The wave of of a common vision of the
on an almost millenarian austerity that has swept single market. Proposals for
DESIGNER LABELS What
SPECIAL
information should be on our food?
REPORT image.
across the continent tempts a banking union that the
member-state governments Commission published yesterday
(12 September) (see
Changing times
TORTILLA into protectionism, TROUBLE state aid,
But how to achieve fresh impetus?
Much of the early in-
against thetical increases to a single the market. ble challenge: How can a
A and protest other in Mexico behaviour City anti-
page 20) will be a formida-
Renewable energy
nocence about the single price Anti-EU of corn. parties REUTERShave capitalised
on the eurozone’s difpervisor
be made compati-
single eurozone banking su-
market’s potential has faded.
LEGISLATION Is the economic crisis dethroning the 2020 targets? Some of its ideals are in tatters.
The dream of crossstream
parties are ket? The UK suggests that 13
ficulties – and even mainble
with the EU’s single mar-
SOLAR SUBSIDIES Sudden changes are discouraging potential investors border consolidation between
large banks to provide doms of the Schengen area tion conflicts with the free-
tampering with the free-
tighter European integra-
FORWARD PLANNING The European grid needs adapting to accommodate deeper and more new energy liquid capital
markets is tarnished. epitomised the achieve-
Much of the rest of the EU
sources of borderless travel that once doms of the single market.
FRIEND OR FOE? Changing
SPECIAL
attitudes towards biofuel
REPORT
Banks have had to be bailed ments of the single market. argues the opposite.
REUTERS
SPECIAL REPORT
Climate change
The single market
ON AND ON AND ON The struggle for a Europe-wide patent
BOARD GAMES A blueprint for companies’ senior executives
HIT THE SWITCH Liberalising Europe’s energy markets
IN THE MONEY A raft of legislation on financial services
POWER OF A UNION The EU’s plans for a banking union
Throughout the year, European Voice takes an in-depth look at some
of the main issues affecting Europe. For news, features and the facts
on the subjects affecting the headlines, European Voice’s Special
Birthday celebrations
for Europe’s
e proposed services directive. The proposal, which aimed to deepen the single market, proved a
European Commission and was blamed for the ‘No’ votes on the EU constitutional treaty single market
cannot hide some
Reports are your most reliable source.
persistent and
deep flaws, writes
Ian Wishart
ars On of ever-thinner progress? Food forice
thought
There is no shortage of conflicting
views on the single
market. Some people regard
But with pressure come mittee on internal market for ensuring that it is applied
it as the greatest achievement
of the European
opportunities. Michel and consumer protection. “It and promoted in member
Union. Others doubt that it
Barnier, the European commissioner
for the internal where we have problems. politicians and officials
doing more to bring its peo-
also brings into sharp focus states. He and other EU
Visit www.europeanvoice.com/tryEV
New worlds of
exists. Some credit
study
it with
market, has set in motion an On things like copyright and know that proposals to overhaul
Europe’s copyright
development in post-war
ples together than any other
unprecedented conveyor [orphan] works and the
belt of financial-service legislation
that would scarcely ucts across borders.” tive Demographic dispute resolution challenges laws, demand new European that it is patterns a painful and ditional all-
food is strongly tive of increasing agricultur-
ability to source digital prod-
regime, to establish alterna-
history. Others maintain
have been thinkable five He says that technology to enable the mutual recognition
in growing, of professional distributing quali-
and consuming food, EU’s writes inability Dave to join up fragture,
which perhaps explains In some ways the policies
too-clear illustration of identified the with regional culal
output and fishing yield.
years ago (see pages 18-19). has altered people’s perception
of how the single marfications,
and to carry out a
mented markets and estab-
why Europeans have been so have been victims of their
Using the crisis to justify the
Keating
lish the most basic of common
standards. There nology will like genetically mod-
Europe’s fish stocks are over-
suspicious of new food tech-
own success. Today, 75% of
introduction of tighter, more ket can benefit them. “People
are doing more remote ment Last rules year, humanity are of pressing reached global conundrum beset by curity is be about plenty human who approach secuified
nextcrops (see pages 18-19). fished, according to the Eu-
revision of public procure-
uniform regulation across
the EU, the results might yet transactions and they want importance: a rather unsettling without milestone.
growth The earth’s there popula-
will be mental concerns.
But celebrations while the number with of some world worries about food tensive agricultural practices
economic
looming health and environrity.”
month’s ‘20th anniversary’ But while the rest of the ropean Commission, and in-
create a real and credible to be able to pay and to have
single market in financial their data secure – and data no solution reached to seven the eurozone billion, Recent increases in food people weariness. is growing, the shortages, Europe is dealing pose dangers to biodiversity
services.
protection which would crisis. up from three billion just five prices, which have already amount The of land celebrations earth is are with as the opposite problem. and water supply. Reforms
have been seen as a civil liberties
issue is now a crucial ebrations, the population the to reach European nine hunger, are already re-
farming inject must the be single used market to in with Europe over the past half ing debated by MEPs and
decades As well ago. as leading Experts the expect cel-
led to food riots and mass not. This much means to do new with ways wanting of The toabundant supply of food of both policies currently be-
Digital economy
billion by 2050. That means minders of the dangers increase yield (see page century has led to overconsumption
and, in turn, rising ing to balance this out, re-
member states are attempt-
Progress in other areas is no single market issue as well,” Commission will set out a
fresh impetus as marking a
nine billion mouths to feed. posed by an inability to feed 18). More controversially,
l i l “Th h
f h li fi d i
true starting point The
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ments such as the drought in
the United States this summer.
Spiking commodity
prices are already having an
effect on grocery stores
across Europe.
The growing middle class
in India and China will also
alter the picture. As those
populations earn more, they
choose to eat more meat and
fish. This will drive up prices
in Europe, and could oblige
Europeans to switch to kinds
of meat and fish not tradition-