European Community Urgent Radiological Information Exchange

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The European Community Urgent Radiological Information Exchange (ECURIE) is the European early notification system in the event of a radiological or nuclear emergency.

Contents

The ECURIE system has two message types: an ECURIE Alert message, which implies an emergency notification under Euratom and an ECURIE Information message, which is a voluntary notification of smaller events and incidents. The possibility of sending ECURIE Information messages was introduced by the Commission in 2001. Since then, there have been more than 20 information messages. [1]

In 1987, the European Council mandated an early notification and information exchange system [2] that:

requires from the ECURIE Member States that they promptly notify the European Commission (EC) and all the Member States potentially affected when they intend to take counter-measures in order to protect their population against the effects of a radiological or nuclear accident. The EC will immediately forward this notification to all Member States. Following this first notification, all Member States are required to inform the Commission at appropriate intervals about the measures they take and the radioactivity levels they have measured.

All 27 EU Member States have signed the ECURIE agreement, as well as Switzerland, Norway and North Macedonia. Iceland, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey have also been invited. [3]

ECURIE is operated by the DG ENER of the European Commission with the Joint Research Centre responsible for technical development.

Usage

See also

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References

  1. Answer of Andris Piebalgs to written question of Rebecca Harms of the European Parliament,
  2. Council Decision of 14 December 1987 on Community arrangements for the early exchange of information in the event of a radiological emergency. Journal L 371, 30 December 1987 P. 0076 – 0078.
  3. Agreement between the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and non-member States of the European Union on the participation of the latter in the Community arrangements for the early exchange of information in the event of radiological emergency (Ecurie) Journal C 102, 29 April 2003 P. 0002 – 0005
  4. Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration website
  5. EU issues radiation alert after incident at Slovenian nuclear plant – AFP Archived 6 June 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  6. European Community Urgent Radiological Information Exchange (ECURIE) Archived 17 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine at the JRC
  7. Bellona: Croatia complains it was kept in the dark after Slovenian reactor incident, while others were told leak was an 'exercise’ Archived 7 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine , 05/06-2008
  8. ECURIE ALERT: Belgian nuclear authorities alert the Commission about measures taken after releases of radioactive iodine