– We have to enhance administrative and technological integrity of nuclear industry under the aegis of the state

I behalf of the State Duma Committee on Energy, Transport and Communication, I have recommended the State Duma to adopt the first reading of the bill on Rosatom state corporation.

The structural reforms that are being carried out in the nuclear industry on the President’s initiative are so complex that we need to revise the legal relations concerning the use of nuclear energy. The bill on Rosatom state corporation is part of the reforms. 

The first step was the adoption of the bill on the reorganization of the nuclear industry. The state-owned Atomenergoprom is supposed to consolidate the civil nuclear companies and to become a constituent part of Rosatom state corporation. The nuclear industry development program, approved by the President in June 2006, stipulates further actions for enhancing the organizational, administrative and technological integrity of the nuclear industry under the aegis of the state. The bill on Rosatom state corporation has been drafted exactly for this purpose.

The strategic goals of the Corporation are as follows:

1. Sustainable development of nuclear weapons, energy and scientific complexes;

2. Guaranteed nuclear, radiation and ecological safety;

3. High competitiveness of the industry;

4. Fulfillment of international commitments for non-proliferation of nuclear materials and technologies.

The bill clearly specifies the powers of the President and the Government with respect to the Corporation. As a singe state administration body and business entity, the Corporation is empowered to fulfill the state order in the field of defense and to implement the state armament program, to ensure the safe use of nuclear energy, to manage the state reserves of special and fissile materials, to guarantee the protection of secret information, to regulate legal relations in the field of use of nuclear energy.
 
The Corporation will have four special reserve funds for ensuring nuclear, radiation and technological safety, physical protection, control of nuclear materials and radioactive matters and waste, decommissioning of nuclear reactors, storing radiation sources and radioactive waste as well as for financing research and development projects in the field of safety. One of the funds is supposed to finance modernization of nuclear weapons and energy complexes and to develop nuclear science and engineering.

Rosatom will have a scientific-technical council for determining priorities in the sphere of innovations. It will be an analogue of the council acting in the times of the well-known Soviet nuclear project.  

The Corporation will be directly controlled by the President and the Government, particularly, through a council of observers.

The adoption of the bill on Rosatom state corporation will become an important step towards the reformation of the nuclear industry. This corporation is an optimal combination of rigid state control and flexible market approach.

The second bill suggests relevant amendments in 15 federal laws as well as the civil, budgetary and criminal codes of the Russian Federation. All the changes are aimed at improving the existing rules. The bills have been approved by the Government, the Legal Department of the State Duma and the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation.