Nuclear Energy Act
(NEA)

This Act reg­u­lates the peace­ful use of nuc­le­ar en­ergy. Its main pur­pose is to pro­tect hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment against the risks of nuc­le­ar en­ergy.

¹ This Act ap­plies to:

a.

nuc­le­ar goods;

b.

nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions;

c.

ra­dio­act­ive waste:

1.

that is gen­er­ated in nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, or

2.

that has been de­livered in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 27 para­graph 1 of the Ra­di­ation Pro­tec­tion Act of 22 March 1991³ (RPA).

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­clude the fol­low­ing from the scope of ap­plic­a­tion of this Act:

a.

nuc­le­ar goods that do not serve the use of nuc­le­ar en­ergy;

b.

nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions with low or harm­less quant­it­ies of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als or ra­dio­act­ive waste;

c.

nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste with low levels of ra­di­ation.

³ The pro­vi­sions of the Ra­di­ation Pro­tec­tion Act ap­ply in­so­far as this Act does not stip­u­late oth­er­wise.

In this Act:

a.

mon­it­or­ing peri­odmeans the peri­od of time over which a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory is mon­itored be­fore it is closed and dur­ing which ra­dio­act­ive waste can be re­trieved without un­due ef­fort;

b.

waste man­age­mentmeanscon­di­tion­ing, in­ter­im stor­age and dis­pos­al of ra­dio­act­ive waste in a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory;

c.

deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­orymeansa in­stall­a­tion loc­ated deep un­der­ground, which may be closed, if the per­man­ent pro­tec­tion of hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment through pass­ive bar­ri­ers is en­sured;

d.

nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tionmeansany in­stall­a­tion or in­stall­a­tions in­ten­ded for the use of nuc­le­ar en­ergy, the ex­trac­tion, pro­duc­tion, use, pro­cessing or stor­age of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als, and the man­age­ment of ra­dio­act­ive waste in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2, para­graph 1c;

e.

nuc­le­ar en­ergymeansany form of en­ergy that is re­leased fol­low­ing the fis­sion or fu­sion of atom­ic nuc­lei;

f.

nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­alsmeanssub­stances that can be used for ob­tain­ing en­ergy by means of nuc­le­ar fis­sion pro­cesses;

g.

con­di­tion­ingmeansthe en­tire range of op­er­a­tions by which ra­dio­act­ive waste is pre­pared for in­ter­im stor­age or fi­nal dis­pos­al, in­clud­ing mech­an­ic­al re­duc­tion, de­con­tam­in­a­tion, press­ing, in­cin­er­a­tion, em­bed­ding in matrices, and pack­aging;

h.

nuc­le­ar goodsmeans:

1.

nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als,

2.

ma­ter­i­als and equip­ment in­ten­ded for or re­quired for the use of nuc­le­ar en­ergy,

3.

tech­no­logy that is re­quired for de­vel­op­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing and us­ing goods cited in num­bers 1 and 2;

i.

ra­dio­act­ive wastemeansra­dio­act­ive sub­stances or con­tam­in­ated ma­ter­i­als that are no longer used;

j.

hand­lingmeansre­search, de­vel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion, stor­age, trans­port, im­port, ex­port, trans­it and broker­age;

k.

broker­agemeans:

1.

provid­ing the es­sen­tial re­quire­ments for con­clud­ing agree­ments on the de­liv­ery, pur­chase or for­ward­ing of nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste, re­gard­less of where the nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste may be loc­ated,

2.

con­clud­ing such agree­ments if per­form­ance is the duty of a third party or parties,

3.

trad­ing in nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste with for­eign coun­tries from Swiss sov­er­eign ter­rit­ory;

l.

clos­uremeansthe back­filling and seal­ing of all un­der­ground ex­cav­a­tions and the ac­cess shaft of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory after ter­min­a­tion of the mon­it­or­ing peri­od;

m.

re­pro­cessingmeanscut­ting up of spent fuel ele­ments, chem­ic­al dis­sol­u­tion of ox­ide fuel and sep­ar­a­tion in­to urani­um, plutoni­um and fis­sion products.

¹ When us­ing nuc­le­ar en­ergy, hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment must be pro­tec­ted against danger due to ion­ising ra­di­ation. Only harm­less quant­it­ies of ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances may be re­leased in­to the en­vir­on­ment. Spe­cial care must be taken to pre­vent the re­lease of im­per­miss­ible quant­it­ies of ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances and to pro­tect hu­mans against im­per­miss­ible levels of ra­di­ation dur­ing nor­mal op­er­a­tion and ac­ci­dents.

² Long-term im­pacts on ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al must be taken in­to ac­count.

³ In or­der to pre­vent harm to hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment, pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ures must be taken that:

a.

are re­quired in ac­cord­ance with ex­per­i­ence and the state of art in sci­ence and tech­no­logy;

b.

con­trib­ute to­wards an ad­di­tion­al re­duc­tion of risk in­so­far as they are ap­pro­pri­ate.

¹ When design­ing, con­struct­ing and op­er­at­ing nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, pre­vent­ive and pro­tect­ive meas­ures must be taken in ac­cord­ance with in­ter­na­tion­ally ac­cep­ted prin­ciples. These meas­ures shall in­clude the use of high-qual­ity com­pon­ents, safety bar­ri­ers, mul­tiple and auto­mated safety sys­tems, the form­a­tion of a suit­able or­gan­isa­tion with qual­i­fied per­son­nel, and the fos­ter­ing of a strong safety aware­ness.

² Pre­par­a­tion must be made for the im­ple­ment­a­tion of emer­gency pro­tec­tion meas­ures to lim­it the ex­tent of dam­age in the event that dan­ger­ous quant­it­ies of ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances should be re­leased in­to the en­vir­on­ment.

³ Se­cur­ity meas­ures must be taken in or­der to pre­vent any in­ter­fer­ence with the safety of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als through un­au­thor­ised acts or the theft of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als.⁴

^3bis The clas­si­fic­a­tion and pro­cessing of in­form­a­tion are gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of the le­gis­la­tion on in­form­a­tion se­cur­ity in the Con­fed­er­a­tion.⁵

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late which pre­vent­ive and pro­tect­ive meas­ures are re­quired.

¹ Any per­son who handles nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als is ob­liged to ob­tain a li­cence from the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may im­pose a li­cens­ing ob­lig­a­tion for:

a.

hand­ling or us­ing any ma­ter­i­als or equip­ment in­ten­ded for, or re­quired for the use of nuc­le­ar en­ergy;

b.

the ex­port or broker­age of tech­no­logy in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 let­ter h, num­ber 3.

³ Li­cences shall be val­id for a lim­ited peri­od only.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the li­cens­ing pro­ced­ure.

A li­cence may be is­sued if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met:

a.

the pro­tec­tion of hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment is as­sured, and nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity are guar­an­teed;

b.

there are no con­flict­ing reas­ons as­so­ci­ated with non-pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuc­le­ar arms, in par­tic­u­lar in­ter­na­tion­al con­trol meas­ures that are not bind­ing un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law but are sup­por­ted by Switzer­land;

c.

no sanc­tions have been im­posed un­der the Em­bargo Act of 22 March 2002⁶;

d.

the re­quired in­sur­ance cov­er ex­ists in ac­cord­ance with the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Li­ab­il­ity Act of 18 March 1983⁷;

e.

there are no con­flict­ing com­mit­ments un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, and Switzer­land’s ex­tern­al se­cur­ity is not af­fected;

f.

the per­sons re­spons­ible for the in­stall­a­tion con­cerned pos­sess the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise.

¹ In spe­cial cases, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil or its des­ig­nated au­thor­ity may pro­hib­it the im­port, ex­port, trans­it and broker­age of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als, or at­tach cer­tain con­di­tions thereto, re­gard­less of wheth­er a li­cens­ing ob­lig­a­tion may ex­ist, if such meas­ures are re­quired in the in­terests of the non-pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuc­le­ar arms.

² For the pur­pose of im­ple­ment­ing in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may rule that no li­cences are to be is­sued for cer­tain coun­tries or for a spe­cified group of coun­tries.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may grant ex­emp­tion from, or the eas­ing of, li­cens­ing ob­lig­a­tions, es­pe­cially for de­liv­er­ies to coun­tries that are con­trac­tu­al parties to in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies on the non-pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuc­le­ar arms or which par­ti­cip­ate in con­trol meas­ures sup­por­ted by Switzer­land.

¹ Spent fuel ele­ments must be dis­posed of as ra­dio­act­ive waste. They may not be re­pro­cessed or ex­por­ted for re­pro­cessing.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide for ex­cep­tions for re­search pur­poses.

Nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als that con­tain plutoni­um may not be trans­por­ted with­in Swiss air­space.

¹ Li­cence hold­ers are ob­liged to no­ti­fy the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies without delay in the event of spe­cial activ­it­ies and oc­cur­rences re­lat­ing to the hand­ling of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als which could in­ter­fere with nuc­le­ar safety or se­cur­ity. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the activ­it­ies and events con­cerned.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may im­pose a re­port­ing ob­lig­a­tion for the pos­ses­sion of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als.

³ Own­ers of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als are ob­liged to mon­it­or their in­vent­or­ies, main­tain de­tailed re­cords there­of, and re­port on them to the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies on a peri­od­ic­al basis. These ob­lig­a­tions shall also ap­ply to any nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als they may own that is kept abroad.

¹ Any­one in­tend­ing to con­struct or op­er­ate a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion re­quires a gen­er­al li­cence is­sued by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. Art­icle 12ais re­served.⁹

² No leg­al en­ti­tle­ment ex­ists with re­spect to the grant­ing of a gen­er­al li­cence.

³ Nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions with a low haz­ard po­ten­tial do not re­quire a gen­er­al li­cence. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the in­stall­a­tions con­cerned.

The grant­ing of gen­er­al li­cences for the con­struc­tion of nuc­le­ar power plants is pro­hib­ited.

¹ A gen­er­al li­cence may be gran­ted if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met:

a.

the pro­tec­tion of hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment can be en­sured;

b.

the grant­ing of the li­cence does not con­flict with any oth­er pro­vi­sions of fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion, in par­tic­u­lar le­gis­la­tion gov­ern­ing en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion, pre­ser­va­tion of loc­al nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age, and spa­tial plan­ning;

c.

a plan has been sub­mit­ted for de­com­mis­sion­ing, or for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and the clos­ure of the in­stall­a­tion;

d.

evid­ence has been provided for the dis­pos­al of res­ult­ing ra­dio­act­ive waste;

e.

Switzer­land’s ex­tern­al se­cur­ity is not af­fected;

f.

there are no con­flicts with com­mit­ments un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law;

g.

with re­gard to deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies, the res­ults of geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions con­firm the suit­ab­il­ity of the site.

² The gen­er­al li­cence shall be gran­ted to a com­pany lim­ited by shares, co-op­er­at­ive or pub­lic law en­tity. If the ap­plic­ant is a for­eign com­pany, it must have a branch re­gistered in the com­mer­cial re­gister in Switzer­land. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­fuse to grant a gen­er­al li­cence to a com­pany formed in ac­cord­ance with the laws of a for­eign coun­try if the coun­try in which the com­pany con­cerned is dom­i­ciled does not grant re­cip­roc­al rights, in­so­far as the de­cision of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil does not con­flict with any ex­ist­ing in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments.

¹ The gen­er­al li­cence shall spe­cify:

a.

the li­cence hold­er;

b.

the loc­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion;

c.

the pur­pose of the in­stall­a­tion;

d.

a brief out­line of the pro­ject;

e.

the max­im­um per­miss­ible ex­pos­ure to ra­di­ation for people in the vi­cin­ity of the in­stall­a­tion;

f.

and with re­gard to deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies:

1.

cri­ter­ia which, if not fully met, lead to the ex­clu­sion of a planned dis­pos­al zone due to lack of suit­ab­il­ity,

2.

a pro­vi­sion­al pro­tec­tion zone.

² A brief out­line of the pro­ject shall in­clude de­scrip­tions of the ap­prox­im­ate size and loc­a­tion of the main build­ings con­sti­tut­ing the in­stall­a­tion and the fol­low­ing:

a.

with re­gard to nuc­le­ar re­act­ors: the re­act­or sys­tem, out­put cat­egory, and main cool­ing sys­tem;

b.

with re­gard to stor­age or dis­pos­al in­stall­a­tions for nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als or ra­dio­act­ive waste: the cat­egor­ies of waste to be em­placed and the max­im­um ca­pa­city.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify a dead­line for the sub­mis­sion of an ap­plic­a­tion for a con­struc­tion li­cence, and may ex­tend this dead­line in cer­tain cir­cum­stances.

Any­one in­tend­ing to con­struct a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion re­quires a con­struc­tion li­cence from the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions the (De­part­ment).

¹ A con­struc­tion li­cence is gran­ted if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met:

a.

the pro­tec­tion of hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment is en­sured;

b.

the pro­ject meets the prin­ciples gov­ern­ing nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity;

c.

the grant­ing of the li­cence does not con­flict with any oth­er pro­vi­sions of fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion, in par­tic­u­lar gov­ern­ing en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion, pre­ser­va­tion of loc­al nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age, and spa­tial plan­ning;

d.

the ap­plic­ant is able to guar­an­tee pro­fes­sion­al pro­ject man­age­ment and has drawn up a pro­gramme of meas­ures re­lat­ing to qual­ity as­sur­ance for all con­struc­tion activ­it­ies;

e.

a plan has been sub­mit­ted for de­com­mis­sion­ing, or a pro­ject for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and a plan for the clos­ure of the in­stall­a­tion.

² For in­stall­a­tions that re­quire a gen­er­al li­cence, a con­struc­tion li­cence will only be gran­ted if:

a.

the ap­plic­ant is in pos­ses­sion of a leg­ally val­id gen­er­al li­cence;

b.

the pro­ject con­cerned com­plies with the pro­vi­sions of the gen­er­al li­cence.

³ For in­stall­a­tions that are not sub­ject to a gen­er­al li­cence, the re­quire­ments cited in Art­icle 13 para­graph 1 let­ters d-f and para­graph 2 also ap­ply.

¹ The con­struc­tion li­cence shall spe­cify:

a.

the li­cence hold­er;

b.

the loc­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion;

c.

the planned re­act­or thermal power out­put or ca­pa­city of in­stall­a­tion;

d.

the main ele­ments of tech­nic­al im­ple­ment­a­tion;

e.

a brief out­line of emer­gency pro­tec­tion meas­ures;

f.

a list identi­fy­ing all struc­tures, sys­tems and com­pon­ents of the in­stall­a­tion that may only be con­struc­ted or in­stalled after a per­mit has been is­sued by the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity.

² The De­part­ment shall spe­cify a dead­line for the com­mence­ment of con­struc­tion work. It may ex­tend this dead­line in cer­tain jus­ti­fied cases.

The li­cence hold­er is ob­liged to draw up and keep a com­plete set of doc­u­ments con­cern­ing tech­nic­al in­stall­a­tions, in­spec­tions and tests that have been car­ried out.

Any­one in­tend­ing to op­er­ate a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion re­quires an op­er­at­ing li­cence gran­ted by the De­part­ment.

¹ An op­er­at­ing li­cence is gran­ted if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met:

a.

the ap­plic­ant is the own­er of the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion in ques­tion;

b.

all pro­vi­sions per­tain­ing to the gen­er­al li­cence and con­struc­tion li­cence have been met;

c.

pro­tec­tion of hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment is en­sured;

d.

the in­stall­a­tion and planned type of op­er­a­tion meet the rel­ev­ant nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity re­quire­ments;

e.

the re­quire­ments on per­son­nel and or­gan­isa­tion can be met;

f.

ap­pro­pri­ate meas­ures have been pre­pared to se­cure qual­ity as­sur­ance for all activ­it­ies to be car­ried out with­in the in­stall­a­tion;

g.

ap­pro­pri­ate meas­ures for deal­ing with emer­gen­cies have been pre­pared;

h.

the pre­scribed in­sur­ance cov­er ex­ists in ac­cord­ance with the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Li­ab­il­ity Act of 18 March 1983¹¹.

² The op­er­at­ing li­cence may be gran­ted at the same time as the con­struc­tion li­cence if the re­quire­ments for safe op­er­a­tion can be as­sessed con­clus­ively at the time of ap­plic­a­tion.

³ The own­er of a nuc­le­ar re­act­or may store nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als in its in­stall­a­tion be­fore an op­er­at­ing li­cence has been gran­ted, as long as it ob­tains a li­cence for this pur­pose from the De­part­ment. Art­icles 20 to 24 ap­ply ana­log­ously to this li­cence.

¹ The op­er­at­ing li­cence shall spe­cify:

a.

the li­cence hold­er;

b.

the per­mit­ted re­act­or thermal out­put or ca­pa­city of the in­stall­a­tion;

c.

the lim­its for re­lease of ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances in­to the en­vir­on­ment;

d.

the meas­ures for en­vir­on­ment­al sur­veil­lance;

e.

the safety, se­cur­ity, and emer­gency meas­ures to be taken by the li­cence hold­er dur­ing op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion;

f.

the levels of start-up that re­quire a per­mit from the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity pri­or to com­mence­ment of op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion.

² The valid­ity of an op­er­at­ing li­cence may be lim­ited to a spe­cif­ic peri­od.

¹ The li­cence hold­er is re­spons­ible for the safety of the in­stall­a­tion and its op­er­a­tion.

² In this con­nec­tion it shall:

a.

al­ways give the ne­ces­sary pri­or­ity to nuc­le­ar safety dur­ing op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion, i.e. com­ply with all spe­cified op­er­at­ing lim­its and con­di­tions;

b.

es­tab­lish a suit­able or­gan­isa­tion and em­ploy an ad­equate num­ber of ap­pro­pri­ately qual­i­fied per­son­nel; the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify min­im­um re­quire­ments and reg­u­late the train­ing of spe­cial­ised staff;

c.

take meas­ures to en­sure that the in­stall­a­tion is kept in good con­di­tion;

d.

carry out fol­low-up in­spec­tions and sys­tem­at­ic safety and se­cur­ity eval­u­ations throughout the en­tire ser­vice life of the in­stall­a­tion;

e.

in the case of nuc­le­ar power plants, carry out a com­pre­hens­ive peri­od­ic safety re­view;

f.

peri­od­ic­ally re­port to the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies about the con­di­tion and op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion, and no­ti­fy them without delay about any events that may oc­cur;

g.

back­fit the in­stall­a­tion to the ne­ces­sary ex­tent that it is in keep­ing with op­er­a­tion­al ex­per­i­ence and the cur­rent state of back­fit­ting tech­no­logy, and bey­ond in­so­far as fur­ther up­grad­ing is ap­pro­pri­ate and res­ults in a fur­ther re­duc­tion of risk to hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment;

h.

mon­it­or sci­entif­ic and tech­no­lo­gic­al de­vel­op­ments, and com­pare op­er­at­ing ex­per­i­ence and find­ings with those of oth­er in­stall­a­tions of a sim­il­ar nature;

i.

keep com­plete doc­u­ment­a­tion on the tech­nic­al in­stall­a­tions and on the op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion, and amend the safety ana­lys­is re­port and the se­cur­ity as ne­ces­sary;

j.

carry out ap­pro­pri­ate meas­ures to se­cure qual­ity as­sur­ance for all activ­it­ies con­duc­ted with­in the in­stall­a­tion;

k.

keep the de­com­mis­sion­ing plan or the pro­ject for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and the plan for the clos­ure of the in­stall­a­tion up to date.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the cri­ter­ia ac­cord­ing to which the li­cence hold­er must tem­por­ar­ily shut down and up­grade the in­stall­a­tion.

¹ The De­part­ment is au­thor­ised to re­quire li­cence hold­ers to main­tain armed se­cur­ity guards to pro­tect nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions against un­law­ful ac­cess or in­ter­fer­ence.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the re­quire­ments placed on the se­cur­ity guards and shall spe­cify the du­ties and au­thor­ity of the per­son­nel after con­sulta­tion with the rel­ev­ant can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

³ The can­ton in which the in­stall­a­tion is loc­ated shall reg­u­late the train­ing of the se­cur­ity guards in col­lab­or­a­tion with the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity.

¹ Per­sons ap­poin­ted to po­s­i­tions that are es­sen­tial for nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity shall reg­u­larly un­der­go re­li­ab­il­ity as­sess­ments.

² These as­sess­ments may in­volve the pro­cessing of data con­cern­ing the health and men­tal abil­ity of the sub­ject con­cerned, to­geth­er with data re­gard­ing his or her life­style and habits that may be of rel­ev­ance to se­cur­ity.¹²

³ Data may be passed on to the own­erof the in­stall­a­tion and to the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine which per­sons shall be sub­ject to re­li­ab­il­ity as­sess­ments and a trust­wor­thi­ness check and shall also reg­u­late the as­sess­ment pro­ced­ure. It shall spe­cify the au­thor­ity that is to carry out re­li­ab­il­ity as­sess­ments, pro­cess the re­lated data and main­tain the as­so­ci­ated data­base.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may or­der the pre­cau­tion­ary shut­down of nuc­le­ar power plants in ex­traordin­ary situ­ations.

¹ The own­er of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion is ob­liged to de­com­mis­sion the in­stall­a­tion if:

a.

it has been defin­it­ively taken out of op­er­a­tion;

b.

the op­er­at­ing li­cence has not been gran­ted or has been with­drawn or has ex­pired in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 68 para­graphs 1 let­ters a or b, and the De­part­ment has ordered the in­stall­a­tion to be de­com­mis­sioned.

² In this con­nec­tion the own­er is ob­liged:

a.

to meet all re­quire­ments re­lat­ing to nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity;

b.

to trans­fer all nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als to an­oth­er nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion;

c.

to de­con­tam­in­ate ra­dio­act­ive com­pon­ents or treat them as ra­dio­act­ive waste;

d.

to prop­erly man­age and dis­pose of ra­dio­act­ive waste;

e.

to main­tain sur­veil­lance of the in­stall­a­tion un­til such time as all sources of nuc­le­ar risks have been re­moved.

¹ The own­er of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion is re­quired to sub­mit a pro­ject to the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies out­lining the plans for its de­com­mis­sion­ing. The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity con­cerned shall spe­cify a dead­line for this pur­pose.

² The pro­ject shall de­scribe:

a.

the vari­ous pro­ject phases and over­all timetable;

b.

each step in the pro­cess of dis­mant­ling and de­moli­tion;

c.

pro­tect­ive meas­ures;

d.

per­son­nel re­quire­ments and or­gan­isa­tion;

e.

the man­age­ment of ra­dio­act­ive waste;

f.

over­all costs, meas­ures taken by the op­er­at­or to se­cure the ne­ces­sary fin­an­cing.

The De­part­ment or­ders the de­com­mis­sion­ing of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and spe­cifies which tasks re­quire a per­mit to be ob­tained from the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies.

¹ After the de­com­mis­sion­ing activ­it­ies have been com­pleted in ac­cord­ance with the ap­plic­able reg­u­la­tions, the De­part­ment shall veri­fy that the in­stall­a­tion no longer rep­res­ents a ra­di­olo­gic­al risk and is thus no longer sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of nuc­le­ar en­ergy le­gis­la­tion.

² The com­pany that was ordered to de­com­mis­sion the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion may only be li­quid­ated with the pri­or con­sent of the De­part­ment.

¹ Ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances shall be handled in such a man­ner as to en­sure that as little ra­dio­act­ive waste as pos­sible is pro­duced.

² All ra­dio­act­ive waste pro­duced in Switzer­land shall, as a gen­er­al rule, be man­aged in Switzer­land.

³ Ra­dio­act­ive waste shall be man­aged in such a man­ner as to en­sure the per­man­ent pro­tec­tion of hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment.

¹ Any per­son who op­er­ates or de­com­mis­sions a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion is ob­liged to safely man­age all ra­dio­act­ive waste arising from that in­stall­a­tion at their own cost. The ob­lig­a­tion to man­age and dis­pose of ra­dio­act­ive waste shall en­com­pass the ne­ces­sary pre­lim­in­ary activ­it­ies such as re­search and geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions, as well as the timely pro­vi­sion of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory.

² The ob­lig­a­tion to man­age and dis­pose of ra­dio­act­ive waste is met if:

a.

the ra­dio­act­ive waste has been trans­ferred to a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory and the funds re­quired for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and the even­tu­al clos­ure have been se­cured;

b.

the ra­dio­act­ive waste has been trans­ferred to a waste man­age­ment in­stall­a­tion abroad.

³ If a gen­er­al li­cence for a nuc­le­ar power plant has been trans­ferred to an­oth­er li­cence hold­er (Art­icle 66 para­graph 2), the pre­vi­ous and the new li­cence hold­er shall be re­spons­ible for the man­age­ment of all ra­dio­act­ive waste and spent fuel pro­duced up to the time of trans­fer of the li­cence.

⁴ The com­pany re­spons­ible for the man­age­ment of ra­dio­act­ive waste may only be li­quid­ated with the pri­or con­sent of the De­part­ment.

¹ Those re­quired to man­age and dis­pose of ra­dio­act­ive waste shall draw up a waste man­age­ment pro­gramme, which shall in­clude a fin­an­cial plan up to the time at which the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions will be taken out of op­er­a­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify a dead­line by which the waste man­age­ment pro­gramme is to be sub­mit­ted.

² The waste man­age­ment pro­gramme shall be re­viewed by an au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, after which it shall be for­war­ded by the De­part­ment to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for ap­prov­al.

³ The au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall mon­it­or com­pli­ance with the pro­gramme after it has been ap­proved.

⁴ The per­sons re­spons­ible for the man­age­ment of ra­dio­act­ive waste are ob­liged to peri­od­ic­ally ad­apt the pro­gramme to chan­ging cir­cum­stances.

⁵ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall provide reg­u­lar re­ports on the pro­gramme to the Fed­er­al As­sembly.

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall be re­spons­ible for the man­age­ment of:

a.

ra­dio­act­ive waste that has been de­livered in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 27 para­graph 1 RPA¹³;

b.

oth­er ra­dio­act­ive waste at the ex­pense of the Dis­pos­al Fund, if the per­sons re­spons­ible for the man­age­ment of ra­dio­act­ive waste should fail to ful­fil their ob­lig­a­tion.

² For this pur­pose, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may:

a.

par­ti­cip­ate in geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions or carry out such in­vest­ig­a­tions it­self;

b.

par­ti­cip­ate in the con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion of a waste man­age­ment in­stall­a­tion or con­struct and op­er­ate such a in­stall­a­tion it­self.

¹ Art­icles 6 to 11 ap­ply ana­log­ously with re­gard to the hand­ling of ra­dio­act­ive waste out­side nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions.

² A li­cence for the im­port of ra­dio­act­ive waste from nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions that has not been pro­duced in Switzer­land, but is to be man­aged here, may be gran­ted by way of ex­cep­tion if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met in ad­di­tion to those cited in Art­icle 7 above:

a.

Switzer­land has con­sen­ted to the im­port of ra­dio­act­ive waste for man­age­ment pur­poses in an agree­ment un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law;

b.

Switzer­land has a suit­able waste man­age­ment in­stall­a­tion that cor­res­ponds to the latest in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards of sci­ence and tech­no­logy;

c.

all coun­tries con­cerned have giv­en their con­sent to the trans­it of the ra­dio­act­ive waste in ques­tion;

d.

the im­port­er and the ex­port­er of the ra­dio­act­ive waste con­sign­ment have signed a leg­ally bind­ing agree­ment that has been ap­proved by the coun­try of ori­gin and stip­u­lates that the ex­port­er shall ac­cept the con­sign­ment if it has to be re­turned for any reas­on.

³ A li­cence may be gran­ted for the ex­port of ra­dio­act­ive waste for con­di­tion­ing if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met in ad­di­tion to those cited in Art­icle 7 above:

a.

the coun­try of des­tin­a­tion has con­sen­ted to the im­port of ra­dio­act­ive waste for con­di­tion­ing pur­poses in an agree­ment un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law;

b.

the coun­try of des­tin­a­tion has a suit­able waste man­age­ment in­stall­a­tion that cor­res­ponds to the latest in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards of sci­ence and tech­no­logy;

c.

all coun­tries con­cerned have giv­en their con­sent to the trans­it of the ra­dio­act­ive waste in ques­tion;

d.

the ex­port­er has entered in­to a bind­ing agree­ment with the im­port­er of the ra­dio­act­ive waste that has been ap­proved by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil or its des­ig­nated au­thor­ity and which stip­u­lates that the ex­port­er shall take back any ra­dio­act­ive waste that may res­ult from con­di­tion­ing or – if ap­plic­able – any ra­dio­act­ive waste that may not have been con­di­tioned.

⁴ A li­cence for the ex­port of ra­dio­act­ive waste for stor­age or dis­pos­al may be gran­ted by way of ex­cep­tion if the con­di­tions cited in para­graph 3 let­ters a-c above are met, and if the ex­port­er has entered in­to a bind­ing agree­ment with the im­port­er of the ra­dio­act­ive waste that has been ap­proved by the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, and which stip­u­lates that the ex­port­er shall take back the con­sign­ment if ne­ces­sary.

¹ Geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions to be car­ried out in or­der to ex­am­ine po­ten­tial sites for a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory re­quire a li­cence from the De­part­ment.

² The li­cence is gran­ted if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met:

a.

the planned in­vest­ig­a­tions are suit­able for provid­ing the ne­ces­sary basis for sub­sequent eval­u­ation of the safety of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory without af­fect­ing the suit­ab­il­ity of the site;

b.

the grant­ing of the li­cence does not con­flict with any oth­er pro­vi­sions of fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion, in par­tic­u­lar le­gis­la­tion gov­ern­ing en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion, nature con­ser­va­tion, pro­tec­tion of nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al land­scapes, and spa­tial plan­ning.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may waive the li­cens­ing ob­lig­a­tion in the case of in­vest­ig­a­tions that have very little im­pact on the im­me­di­ate sur­round­ings.

¹ The li­cence spe­cifies:

a.

the main as­pects of the in­vest­ig­a­tions, in­clud­ing in par­tic­u­lar the ap­prox­im­ate loc­a­tion and ex­tent of drilling and un­der­ground struc­tures;

b.

the in­vest­ig­a­tions that may only be car­ried out after a per­mit has been ob­tained from the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies;

c.

the scope of geo­lo­gic­al doc­u­ment­a­tion.

² The li­cence shall be val­id for a lim­ited peri­od only.

¹ An op­er­at­ing li­cence for a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory is gran­ted if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met in ad­di­tion to those cited in Art­icle 20 para­graph 1:

a.

the find­ings ob­tained dur­ing con­struc­tion con­firm the suit­ab­il­ity of the site;

b.

it is pos­sible to re­trieve the ra­dio­act­ive waste without un­due ef­fort un­til clos­ure of the re­pos­it­ory.

² The op­er­at­ing li­cence shall spe­cify the defin­it­ive pro­tec­tion zone for the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory.

³ It shall spe­cify cer­tain re­quire­ments, in par­tic­u­lar activ­ity lim­its for the waste to be stored. The em­place­ment of each type of waste re­quires a per­mit to be ob­tained be­fore­hand from the rel­ev­ant su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ob­lige the hold­er of an op­er­at­ing li­cence for a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory to take ra­dio­act­ive waste ori­gin­at­ing from Switzer­land against pay­ment of suf­fi­cient re­mu­ner­a­tion to cov­er costs, as long as the waste con­cerned meets the re­quire­ments cited in the op­er­at­ing li­cence.

² The li­cence hold­er is ob­liged to keep com­plete re­cords of all find­ings ob­tained up to the end of the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and of rel­ev­ance to safety, to­geth­er with plans of the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory and an in­vent­ory of ra­dio­act­ive waste stored therein.

³ For as long as the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory re­mains sub­ject to nuc­le­ar en­ergy le­gis­la­tion, the op­er­at­ing com­pany may only be li­quid­ated with the pri­or con­sent of the De­part­ment.

¹ The own­er of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory is ob­liged to sub­mit an up­dated pro­ject for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and a pro­ject for the even­tu­al clos­ure if:

a.

the em­place­ment of ra­dio­act­ive waste has been com­pleted;

b.

the op­er­at­ing li­cence has been with­drawn or has ex­pired in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 68 para­graph 1 let­ters a or b, and the De­part­ment has ruled that a pro­ject must be sub­mit­ted.

² Upon ex­piry of the mon­it­or­ing peri­od, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall or­der the clos­ure of the re­pos­it­ory, if the per­man­ent pro­tec­tion of hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment is en­sured.

³ After the re­pos­it­ory has been closed in ac­cord­ance with the ap­plic­able reg­u­la­tions, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late that it must be mon­itored for a fur­ther lim­ited peri­od of time.

⁴ After the re­pos­it­ory has been closed in ac­cord­ance with the ap­plic­able reg­u­la­tions, or upon ex­piry of the ad­di­tion­al mon­it­or­ing peri­od, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­clare that the dis­pos­al in­stall­a­tion is no longer sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of nuc­le­ar en­ergy le­gis­la­tion. The Con­fed­er­a­tion may im­ple­ment fur­ther-reach­ing meas­ures, in par­tic­u­lar en­vir­on­ment­al mon­it­or­ing.

¹ The pro­tec­tion zone is the un­der­ground area in which in­ter­ven­tion could in­ter­fere with the safety of the re­pos­it­ory. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the cri­ter­ia for the pro­tec­tion zone.

² Any­one in­tend­ing to carry out deep drilling, con­struct shafts, carry out ex­plo­sions or oth­er activ­it­ies that af­fect a des­ig­nated pro­tec­tion zone is re­quired to ap­ply to an au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for a li­cence.

³ The au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall enter a pro­vi­sion­al re­gis­tra­tion of the pro­tec­tion zone with the rel­ev­ant land re­gistry fol­low­ing the is­sue of a gen­er­al li­cence and a defin­it­ive entry fol­low­ing the is­sue of an op­er­at­ing li­cence. The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall enter in­to the land re­gister those plots of land af­fected by the des­ig­na­tion of a pro­tec­tion zone which are not re­cor­ded in the land re­gister. Plots of land for which no of­fi­cial sur­vey has been car­ried out, shall be duly sur­veyed (ini­tial or re­peat sur­vey). The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late this pro­ced­ure.

⁴ The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are re­spons­ible for en­sur­ing that the pro­tec­tion zone is re­gistered in the struc­ture and land use plan.

⁵ In the event that the re­pos­it­ory should not be con­struc­ted or put in­to op­er­a­tion, the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall re­voke the pro­vi­sion­al pro­tec­tion zone and re­quest the rel­ev­ant land re­gistry to de­lete the entry from the land re­gister. The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are re­spons­ible for en­sur­ing that the struc­ture and land use plan are amended ac­cord­ingly.

⁶ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is re­spons­ible for en­sur­ing that all re­cords con­cern­ing the re­pos­it­ory, the waste stored therein and the des­ig­nated pro­tec­tion zone are duly pre­served and that as­so­ci­ated find­ings are re­tained in a suit­able man­ner. It may pass on cor­res­pond­ing data to oth­er coun­tries or in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions.

⁷ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil stip­u­lates that the re­pos­it­ory be per­man­ently marked.

¹ Raw data and find­ings ob­tained from geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions and dur­ing the con­struc­tion of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory shall be sub­mit­ted to the Con­fed­er­a­tion on re­quest free of charge.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late ac­cess to and use of this data, and in so do­ing shall pro­tect the in­terests of the own­ers of the data.

Ap­plic­a­tions for a gen­er­al li­cence must be sub­mit­ted to the Swiss Fed­er­al Of­fice of En­ergy the (Fed­er­al Of­fice), to­geth­er with all ne­ces­sary doc­u­ment­a­tion. The Fed­er­al Of­fice then ex­am­ines the ap­plic­a­tion and re­quests any fur­ther in­form­a­tion that may be re­quired.

¹ The Fed­er­al Of­fice shall ob­tain the ne­ces­sary ex­pert re­ports on the fol­low­ing as­pects:

a.

pro­tec­tion of hu­mans and the en­vir­on­ment;

b.

dis­pos­al of ra­dio­act­ive waste.

² It shall then re­quests the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and gov­ern­ment ex­pert bod­ies to com­ment on the ap­plic­a­tion and ex­pert re­ports with­in three months. Oth­er dead­lines may ap­ply for the as­so­ci­ated en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact re­port. The Fed­er­al Of­fice may ex­tend the dead­line if the situ­ation re­quires.

³ The con­cili­ation pro­ced­ure with­in the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion is based on the pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 62b of the Fed­er­al Act of 21 March 1997¹⁴ on the Or­gan­isa­tion of the Gov­ern­ment and the Ad­min­is­tra­tion (GAOA).

The De­part­ment shall in­volve the can­ton in which the in­stall­a­tion is to be loc­ated as well as the can­tons and coun­tries whose bor­ders lie in the im­me­di­ate vi­cin­ity of the planned loc­a­tion be­fore mak­ing a de­cision on the gen­er­al li­cence. The con­cerns of the can­ton in which the in­stall­a­tion is to be loc­ated as well as those of the can­tons and coun­tries whose bor­ders lie in the im­me­di­ate vi­cin­ity must be taken in­to ac­count, provided this does not place un­reas­on­able lim­it­a­tions on the pro­ject.

¹ The ap­plic­a­tion and ad­vis­ory opin­ions of the can­tons and rel­ev­ant au­thor­it­ies, as well as all as­so­ci­ated ex­pert re­ports, shall be made avail­able for pub­lic in­spec­tion for a peri­od of three months.

² No­tice of the pub­lic in­spec­tion shall be pub­lished in the of­fi­cial gaz­ette of each can­ton and com­mune con­cerned, as well as in the Swiss Fed­er­al Gaz­ette.

¹ Well-foun­ded ob­jec­tions to the grant­ing of a gen­er­al li­cence must be sub­mit­ted in writ­ing to the Fed­er­al Of­fice with­in three months of pub­lic­a­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­tend the dead­line by a max­im­um of three months upon re­ceipt of a jus­ti­fied ap­plic­a­tion. There are no costs as­so­ci­ated with ob­jec­tions, nor is there any en­ti­tle­ment to com­pens­a­tion of parties.

² Any­one clas­si­fied as party in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968¹⁵ (APA) may file an ap­peal with the Fed­er­al Of­fice with­in three months of pub­lic­a­tion. Com­munes may seek to safe­guard their in­terests by lodging an ap­peal. Oth­er­wise the pro­vi­sions of the APA ap­ply.

³ Parties res­id­ent abroad must provide an ad­dress in Switzer­land for no­ti­fic­a­tion pur­poses. Fail­ure to do so may res­ult in non-no­ti­fic­a­tion or non-pub­lic­a­tion in the Swiss Fed­er­al Gaz­ette.

¹ The Fed­er­al Of­fice shall in­vite can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies, spe­cial­ised in­sti­tu­tions and re­cog­nised ex­perts to sub­mit ad­vis­ory opin­ions on ob­jec­tions and ap­peals for the at­ten­tion of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

² The set­tle­ment of dif­fer­ences with­in the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion is based on the pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 62b GAOA¹⁶.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall be re­spons­ible for rul­ing on all ap­plic­a­tions, ob­jec­tions and ap­peals.

² It shall sub­mit its rul­ings to the Fed­er­al As­sembly for ap­prov­al.

³ If the Fed­er­al Coun­cil should de­cide not to grant a gen­er­al li­cence, and the Fed­er­al As­sembly fails to ap­prove this rul­ing, the Fed­er­al As­sembly shall in­struct the Fed­er­al Coun­cil to grant the gen­er­al li­cence to­geth­er with any con­di­tions that the Fed­er­al As­sembly may have at­tached to it, and to re-sub­mit its de­cision to the Fed­er­al As­sembly for ap­prov­al.

⁴ Res­ol­u­tions by the Fed­er­al As­sembly con­cern­ing the ap­prov­al of gen­er­al li­cences are sub­ject to op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

¹ The pro­ced­ures gov­ern­ing con­struc­tion li­cences for nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and li­cences for geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions are gov­erned by the APA¹⁷ un­less this Act provides oth­er­wise.¹⁸

^1bis If com­puls­ory pur­chases are re­quired, the pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 June 1930¹⁹ on Com­puls­ory Pur­chase (CPA) also ap­ply.²⁰

² The grant­ing of a li­cence en­com­passes all re­quire­ments in ac­cord­ance with fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion.

³ Can­ton­al li­cences and plans are not re­quired. Can­ton­al le­gis­la­tion must be taken in­to ac­count, in­so­far as this does not un­duly com­prom­ise the pro­ject.

⁴ The De­part­ment shall con­sult the can­ton in which the in­stall­a­tion is loc­ated be­fore it grants a li­cence. If the can­ton should re­ject the ap­plic­a­tion, but the De­part­ment non­ethe­less is­sues the li­cence, the can­ton shall be en­titled to file an ap­peal.

⁵ A nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion also en­com­passes all ex­ploit­a­tion and in­stall­a­tion sites as­so­ci­ated with its con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion. Geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions and deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies also in­clude sites for the use or stor­age of ex­cav­ated, ex­trac­ted and de­moli­tion ma­ter­i­al that are dir­ectly re­lated to the pro­ject in spa­tial and func­tion­al re­spects.

Ap­plic­a­tions must be sub­mit­ted to the Fed­er­al Of­fice, to­geth­er with all ne­ces­sary doc­u­ment­a­tion. The Fed­er­al Of­fice then ex­am­ines the ap­plic­a­tion and re­quests any fur­ther in­form­a­tion that may be re­quired.

For the ap­plic­ant, com­puls­ory pur­chase rights ap­ply as fol­lows:

a.

for the con­struc­tion, op­er­a­tion and de­com­mis­sion­ing of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion for which a gen­er­al li­cence is re­quired;

b.

for geo­lo­gic­al stud­ies that re­quire a li­cence;

c.

for the con­struc­tion of ex­ploit­a­tion and in­stall­a­tion sites that are dir­ectly as­so­ci­ated with pro­jects in ac­cord­ance with let­ters a and b;

d.

for sites for the use or stor­age of ex­cav­ated, ex­trac­ted and de­moli­tion ma­ter­i­al that are dir­ectly re­lated to the pro­ject in spa­tial and func­tion­al re­spects.

¹ Be­fore the ap­plic­a­tion is made avail­able for pub­lic in­spec­tion, the ap­plic­ant must make the changes that the planned in­stall­a­tion or planned geo­lo­gic­al stud­ies will have on the site and its sur­round­ings clearly vis­ible by mark­ing the bound­ar­ies and, in the case of build­ings, erect­ing pro­file frames.

² Any ob­jec­tions to the marked bound­ar­ies or erec­ted pro­files must be sub­mit­ted to the Fed­er­al Of­fice im­me­di­ately, or in any case no later than the ex­piry of the in­spec­tion dead­line.

¹ After re­ceiv­ing an ap­plic­a­tion, the Fed­er­al Of­fice shall for­ward it to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies con­cerned and re­quest them to sub­mit an ad­vis­ory opin­ion with­in three months. The Fed­er­al Of­fice may ex­tend the dead­line in cer­tain jus­ti­fied cir­cum­stances.

² The ap­plic­a­tion shall be pub­lished in the of­fi­cial gaz­ette of each can­ton and com­mune con­cerned, as well as in the Swiss Fed­er­al Gaz­ette, and made avail­able for pub­lic in­spec­tion for a peri­od of 30 days.

³ ...²¹

¹ Any­one deemed to be party in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of the APA²³ may file an ob­jec­tion with the Fed­er­al Of­fice dur­ing the pub­lic no­ti­fic­a­tion peri­od.²⁴ Per­sons who do not file an ob­jec­tion are ex­cluded from any fu­ture pro­ceed­ings.

² Any per­son who is a party un­der the pro­vi­sions of the CPA²⁵ may file ap­plic­a­tions un­der Art­icle 33 CPA dur­ing the pub­lic in­spec­tion peri­od.²⁶

³ The com­munes con­cerned may seek to safe­guard their in­terests by fil­ing an ob­jec­tion

⁴ Art­icle 46 para­graph 3 ap­plies with re­gard to parties res­id­ent abroad.

The con­cili­ation pro­ced­ure with­in the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion is based on the pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 62b GAOA²⁷.

When it grants the ne­ces­sary li­cence, the De­part­ment sim­ul­tan­eously rules on all claims and ap­peals as­so­ci­ated with com­puls­ory pur­chase rights.

¹ After the li­cens­ing pro­ced­ure has been con­cluded, a con­cili­ation and as­sess­ment pro­ced­ure shall be car­ried out be­fore the Com­puls­ory Pur­chase Tribunal (in­so­far as this may be ne­ces­sary), in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of the CPA²⁹.³⁰

² ...³¹

³ The Chair­man of the Com­puls­ory Pur­chase Tribunal may ap­prove pre­ma­ture oc­cu­pancy on the basis of an en­force­able li­cence rul­ing. For this pur­pose it shall be as­sumed that the ex­pro­pri­at­or would suf­fer sig­ni­fic­ant dis­ad­vant­ages if pre­ma­ture oc­cu­pancy were to be denied. Oth­er­wise the pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 76 of the CPA ap­ply.

¹ In the event that any re­stric­tions on the use of prop­erty should arise in as­so­ci­ation with the defin­i­tion of the pro­tec­tion zone that would be equi­val­ent to com­puls­ory pur­chase, these shall be com­pensated in full. The cir­cum­stances at the time at which the prop­erty re­stric­tions came in­to ef­fect ap­ply for the pur­pose of as­sess­ing the amount of com­pens­a­tion to be paid.

² It is the own­er of the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory who shall be ob­liged to pay com­pens­a­tion.

³ The party af­fected by the prop­erty re­stric­tion shall file their claims with the own­er of the re­pos­it­ory in writ­ing with­in five years fol­low­ing defin­it­ive re­gis­tra­tion (Art. 40 para. 3). In the event that any claims should be con­tested in full or in part, the pro­ced­ure is gov­erned by the CPA³².³³

⁴ ...³⁴

⁵ Com­pens­a­tion shall be­come in­terest-bear­ing with ef­fect from the date on which the prop­erty re­stric­tions came in­to ef­fect.

¹ In the event that geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions and the con­struc­tion of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory should res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant volumes of ex­cav­ated, ex­trac­ted or de­moli­tion ma­ter­i­al that can­not be used or stored in the im­me­di­ate vi­cin­ity of the site, the au­thor­it­ies of the can­ton con­cerned shall des­ig­nate sites ne­ces­sary for the dis­pos­al of that ma­ter­i­al.

² In the event that the can­ton con­cerned has not gran­ted a li­cence, or that the li­cence is­sued has not entered in­to force at the time the con­struc­tion li­cence for car­ry­ing out geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions is gran­ted, the De­part­ment may des­ig­nate an in­ter­im stor­age site and at­tach con­di­tions and re­quire­ments gov­ern­ing its use. The pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing pro­ced­ures as spe­cified in this sec­tion ap­ply. The can­ton con­cerned shall des­ig­nate sites for the dis­pos­al of the ma­ter­i­al with­in a peri­od of five years.

The pro­ced­ure for ob­tain­ing an op­er­at­ing li­cence for a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion is reg­u­lated in Art­icle 49 para­graphs 1–4, Art­icle 50, Art­icle 51 and Art­icles 53–59.

The pro­ced­ure for de­com­mis­sion­ing nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions is reg­u­lated in Art­icle 49 para­graphs 1–4 and Art­icles 50–58 and 60.

The pro­ced­ure for the clos­ure of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory is reg­u­lated in Art­icle 49 para­graphs 1-4 and Art­icles 50, 53 and 55.

¹ For rul­ings in ac­cord­ance with this Act oth­er than those gov­erned by sec­tions 1 to 3 of this chapter, the pro­vi­sions of the APA³⁵ ap­ply.

² Art­icle 46 para­graph 3 ap­plies with re­spect to parties who are res­id­ent abroad.

³ Only the ap­plic­ant shall have party status in the pro­ced­ure gov­ern­ing per­mits from the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies.

¹ After com­ple­tion of the pro­ced­ure for the grant­ing of a gen­er­al li­cence, an amend­ment is re­quired:

a.

for a change of pur­pose or scope of activ­it­ies of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion that re­quires a gen­er­al li­cence (this does not in­clude de­com­mis­sion­ing or clos­ure);

b.

for a com­pre­hens­ive up­grad­ing of a nuc­le­ar power plant in or­der to ex­tend its ser­vice life, es­pe­cially if the re­act­or ves­sel is to be re­placed.

² After the re­spect­ive is­su­ing pro­ced­ure has been com­pleted, an amend­ment to a li­cence or or­der is re­quired in the event of any sig­ni­fic­ant de­vi­ations from the ori­gin­al con­struc­tion li­cence, op­er­at­ing li­cence, and li­cence for car­ry­ing out geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions, and or­ders re­gard­ing de­com­mis­sion­ing and clos­ure.

³ In the event of amend­ments that do not de­vi­ate sig­ni­fic­antly from the re­spect­ive li­cence or or­der as cited in para­graph 2, but which may have an in­flu­ence on nuc­le­ar safety or se­cur­ity, the hold­er is re­quired to ob­tain a per­mit from the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies.

⁴ All oth­er amend­ments must be re­por­ted to the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies.

⁵ In case of doubt:

a.

the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide wheth­er an amend­ment to a gen­er­al li­cence is ne­ces­sary;

b.

the De­part­ment shall de­cide wheth­er an amend­ment to a li­cence or or­der is re­quired as cited in para­graph 2;

c.

the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies shall de­cide wheth­er a per­mit is re­quired.

¹ The li­cens­ing au­thor­ity may trans­fer a li­cence to a new hold­er if the lat­ter meets the spe­cified re­quire­ments.

² A gen­er­al li­cence for a nuc­le­ar power plant may be trans­ferred if the pre­vi­ous hold­er has also se­cured the fin­an­cing of de­com­mis­sion­ing and dis­pos­al in ac­cord­ance with the dur­a­tion of op­er­a­tion.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is re­spons­ible for the trans­fer of a gen­er­al li­cence. Be­fore do­ing so, it shall first re­quest the au­thor­it­ies of the can­ton in which the in­stall­a­tion is loc­ated to sub­mit an ad­vis­ory opin­ion.

⁴ When a gen­er­al li­cence is thus trans­ferred, the con­struc­tion li­cence and op­er­at­ing li­cence shall be trans­ferred with it. Con­struc­tion li­cences and op­er­at­ing li­cences may not be trans­ferred sep­ar­ately.

⁵ In the pro­ced­ure gov­ern­ing the trans­fer of a gen­er­al li­cence, only the ap­plic­ant and the pre­vi­ous li­cence hold­er shall have the status of party. The pro­vi­sions of the APA³⁶ ap­ply.

⁶ Li­cences for hand­ling nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste are non-trans­fer­able.

¹ The li­cens­ing au­thor­ity shall with­draw a li­cence if:

a.

the pre­requis­ites for grant­ing it are not, or are no longer, met;

b.

the li­cence hold­er fails to com­ply with a rul­ing or ordered meas­ure des­pite hav­ing been re­minded to do so.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall be re­spons­ible for de­cisions con­cern­ing the with­draw­al of a gen­er­al li­cence.

³ The de­cision of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall be sub­ject to ap­prov­al by the Fed­er­al As­sembly.

⁴ The with­draw­al of the gen­er­al li­cence also en­tails the with­draw­al of the con­struc­tion li­cence and of the op­er­at­ing li­cence.

⁵ The pro­vi­sions of the APA³⁷ ap­ply to the with­draw­al of a gen­er­al li­cence.

¹ The li­cence ex­pires when:

a.

the peri­od of valid­ity cited therein has elapsed;

b.

the li­cence hold­er no­ti­fies the li­cens­ing au­thor­ity that it wishes to re­nounce the li­cence;

c.

the De­part­ment or the Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­clare (in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 39 para­graph 4) that the site is no longer sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of nuc­le­ar en­ergy le­gis­la­tion.

² A gen­er­al li­cence shall ex­pire if an ap­plic­a­tion for a con­struc­tion li­cence is not sub­mit­ted with­in the stated peri­od. A con­struc­tion li­cence shall ex­pire if con­struc­tion work is not com­menced with­in the stated peri­od.

³ When a gen­er­al li­cence ex­pires, the con­struc­tion li­cence and op­er­at­ing li­cence shall ex­pire with it.

¹ The pro­vi­sions in­cluded in an op­er­at­ing li­cence that are re­quired to main­tain the se­cur­ity of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion both while it is op­er­a­tion­al and after it has ceased op­er­a­tion shall re­main in ef­fect after with­draw­al or ex­piry of the li­cence, un­til such time as ar­range­ments have been com­pleted re­gard­ing de­com­mis­sion­ing and seal­ing.

² Para­graph 1 ap­plies ana­log­ously to the with­draw­al and ex­piry of a li­cence in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 20 para­graph 3.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies are:

a.

where nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity are con­cerned, the Swiss Fed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate³⁸ (EN­SI) in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 22 June 2007³⁹ on the Swiss Fed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate;

b.

oth­er agen­cies to be des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.⁴⁰

² These shall not be bound on tech­nic­al mat­ters by dir­ect­ives, and must be form­ally sep­ar­ated from the li­cens­ing au­thor­it­ies.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ap­point the Fed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety Com­mis­sion (NSC); this com­mis­sion com­prises five to nine mem­bers. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the re­quire­ments as re­gards the in­de­pend­ence of the mem­bers.⁴²

² The NSC per­forms the fol­low­ing ad­vis­ory tasks on be­half of EN­SI, the De­part­ment and the Fed­er­al Coun­cil:

a.

ex­am­in­a­tion of fun­da­ment­al is­sues con­cern­ing nuc­le­ar safety;

b.

par­ti­cip­a­tion in le­gis­lat­ive work in the field of nuc­le­ar safety.

³ On be­half of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the De­part­ment, it may re­port on EN­SI's ex­pert opin­ions. It shall ac­cord­ingly draft the re­ports re­quired by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, the De­part­ment or the Fed­er­al Of­fice.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies shall ex­am­ine sub­mit­ted pro­jects and en­sure that li­cence hold­ers and own­ers of nuc­le­ar goods meet their ob­lig­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of this Act.

² They shall or­der all ne­ces­sary and reas­on­able meas­ures aimed at pre­serving nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity.

³ In the event of an im­me­di­ate threat, they may im­pose im­me­di­ate meas­ures that de­vi­ate from the is­sued li­cence or rul­ing.

⁴ If ne­ces­sary they may seize nuc­le­ar goods or ra­dio­act­ive waste and elim­in­ate sources of threat at the cost of the own­er.

⁵ They may call on the in­ter­ven­tion of can­ton­al and com­mun­al po­lice forces, as well as the in­vest­ig­a­tion bod­ies of the Fed­er­al Of­fice for Cus­toms and Bor­der Se­cur­ity. If there is evid­ence that of­fences against the pro­vi­sions of this Act may have been com­mit­ted, the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies may call on the in­ter­ven­tion of the rel­ev­ant fed­er­al po­lice au­thor­ity. Bor­der con­trols are the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the cus­toms au­thor­it­ies.⁴³

⁶ The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies shall keep de­tailed re­cords of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als and ra­dio­act­ive waste in Swiss nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions. These re­cords shall also en­com­pass nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als and ra­dio­act­ive waste abroad, in­so­far as they are in the pos­ses­sion of Swiss li­cence hold­ers. They shall provide in­form­a­tion about their loc­a­tion, in­ten­ded use, pro­cessing and stor­age.

¹ In­so­far as is re­quired for the en­force­ment of this Act, its im­ple­ment­a­tion pro­vi­sions or rul­ings based there­on, the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies shall be provided with all in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ment­a­tion they may need in or­der to make com­pre­hens­ive as­sess­ments or carry out ef­fect­ive con­trols.

² The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies are em­powered to enter all plots of land, build­ings and in­stall­a­tions of per­sons ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion and any sites on which geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions are be­ing car­ried out in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 35, without pri­or no­ti­fic­a­tion, and may in­stall mon­it­or­ing devices and seals, col­lect ma­ter­i­al and soil samples, and in­spect all rel­ev­ant doc­u­ment­a­tion. They may con­fis­cate any in­crim­in­at­ing ma­ter­i­al.

¹ The rel­ev­ant au­thor­it­ies shall reg­u­larly in­form the gen­er­al pub­lic about the con­di­tion of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and any mat­ters per­tain­ing to nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste.

² They shall in­form the gen­er­al pub­lic of any spe­cial oc­cur­rences.

³ Man­u­fac­tur­ing and busi­ness secrecy shall be duly ob­served.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall re­port reg­u­larly to the Fed­er­al As­sembly on de­vel­op­ments in nuc­le­ar tech­no­logy.

¹ Li­cens­ing and su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies may pro­cess per­son­al data with­in the scope of the de­clared pur­pose of this Act.

² With re­gard to highly sens­it­ive per­son­al data, pro­cessing shall be re­stric­ted to ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings or crim­in­al pro­sec­u­tion and sanc­tions. Oth­er highly sens­it­ive per­son­al data may be pro­cessed if this is deemed es­sen­tial for deal­ing with a spe­cif­ic case.

³ Data may be stored elec­tron­ic­ally.

¹ The pur­pose of the De­com­mis­sion­ing Fund is to se­cure the ne­ces­sary fin­an­cial re­sources for the de­com­mis­sion­ing and dis­mant­ling of ob­sol­ete nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and for the dis­pos­al of the res­ult­ing waste ma­ter­i­al (de­com­mis­sion­ing costs).

² The pur­pose of the Waste Dis­pos­al Fund is to se­cure the fin­an­cing of the dis­pos­al of ra­dio­act­ive waste and spent fuel ele­ments after the in­stall­a­tions have been de­com­mis­sioned (dis­pos­al costs).

³ Own­ers of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions are ob­liged to pay con­tri­bu­tions in­to the De­com­mis­sion­ing Fund and the Waste Dis­pos­al Fund. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­empt own­ers of in­stall­a­tions with low de­com­mis­sion­ing and dis­pos­al costs from the ob­lig­a­tion to pay con­tri­bu­tions in­to these funds.

¹ The en­ti­tle­ment of each own­er ob­liged to pay con­tri­bu­tions in­to these funds shall be equi­val­ent to the amount paid in, in­clud­ing cap­it­al earn­ings and after de­duc­tion of costs. En­ti­tle­ments may not be sold, pledged, seized or in­cor­por­ated in­to bank­ruptcy es­tate.

² In the event that the en­ti­tle­ments on the part of a con­trib­ut­ing own­er should ex­ceed the amount paid in by same, the sur­plus shall be re­fun­ded with­in one year after cal­cu­la­tion of the clos­ing state­ment.

³ If a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion is ad­op­ted from a bank­ruptcy es­tate, the en­ti­tle­ments due from the two funds shall be trans­ferred to the new own­er, who shall then be ob­liged to pay the con­tri­bu­tions owed to the fund by the bank­rupt com­pany.

⁴ If a com­pany is re­moved from the com­mer­cial re­gister after com­ple­tion of bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings and with the con­sent of the De­part­ment, and if the in­stall­a­tion is not taken over by an­oth­er com­pany, the con­tri­bu­tions already paid in shall be­come the prop­erty of the two funds, who shall use the amounts con­cerned to fin­ance the de­com­mis­sion­ing and dis­pos­al op­er­a­tions of the in­stall­a­tion con­cerned. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide how any res­ult­ing sur­plus is to be used.

¹ In the event that the en­ti­tle­ment on the part of a con­trib­ut­ing party should not suf­fice to cov­er the costs, the party con­cerned shall cov­er the re­main­ing costs from its own fin­an­cial re­sources.

² In the event that the party con­cerned provides evid­ence that its own fin­an­cial re­sources are in­suf­fi­cient, the De­com­mis­sion­ing Fund or Dis­pos­al Fund shall cov­er the re­main­ing costs from its over­all re­sources. This shall also ap­ply in the case cited in Art­icle 78 para­graph 4.

³ The Dis­pos­al Fund shall cov­er costs in­curred by the Con­fed­er­a­tion in as­so­ci­ation with dis­pos­al re­quire­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 33 para­graph 1let­ter b, from the con­tri­bu­tions that the con­trib­ut­ing party has paid in­to the fund. In the event that these con­tri­bu­tions should not suf­fice, the fund shall cov­er the re­main­ing costs from its over­all re­sources.

¹ In the event that the pay­ments by a fund in fa­vour of a be­ne­fi­ciary should ex­ceed its en­ti­tle­ment, the be­ne­fi­ciary shall re­pay the dif­fer­ence to the fund, to­geth­er with in­terest at nor­mal mar­ket rates.

² If the be­ne­fi­ciary is un­able to ef­fect re­pay­ment with­in a peri­od spe­cified by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, the oth­er con­trib­ut­ing parties and be­ne­fi­ciar­ies of the fund con­cerned shall cov­er the dif­fer­ence through ad­di­tion­al pay­ments in pro­por­tion to their con­tri­bu­tions.

³ An ob­lig­a­tion to pay ad­di­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions shall also ap­ply:

a.

in the case of Art­icle 78 para­graph 4, if the con­tri­bu­tions that have be­come the prop­erty of the fund should not suf­fice to cov­er the de­com­mis­sion­ing or dis­pos­al costs;

b.

in the case of Art­icle 79 para­graph 3, if the party re­spons­ible for dis­pos­al fails to re­pay the dif­fer­ence to the fund.

⁴ In the event that ad­di­tion­al pay­ments to cov­er short­ages of funds should be deemed un­reas­on­able by the parties con­cerned, the Fed­er­al As­sembly shall de­cide wheth­er, and to what ex­tent, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall con­trib­ute to­wards the un­covered costs.

¹ The funds have their own leg­al per­son­al­ity, and are sub­ject to the su­per­vi­sion of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil ap­points an ad­min­is­trat­ive com­mis­sion for each fund as ex­ec­ut­ive body. The two com­mis­sions spe­cify the con­tri­bu­tions to be paid to their re­spect­ive funds, and the be­ne­fits and ser­vices to be provided.

³ If ne­ces­sary, the funds may grant ad­vances to one an­oth­er or the Con­fed­er­a­tion may grant ad­vances to either fund or both funds; in­terest on these loans shall be based on nor­mal mar­ket rates.

⁴ Both funds are ex­empt from all dir­ect fed­er­al, can­ton­al and com­mun­al taxes.

⁵ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails of the two funds; it spe­cifies the basis for cal­cu­lat­ing the con­tri­bu­tions, and defines the prin­ciples of their in­vest­ment policy. It may also am­al­gam­ate the funds.

¹ In ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 669 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁴⁶, and based on the cal­cu­la­tions of dis­pos­al costs by the Dis­pos­al Fund, own­ers of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions are re­quired to es­tab­lish re­serves for dis­pos­al costs that arise pri­or to de­com­mis­sion­ing.

² Fur­ther­more, own­ers are re­quired to:

a.

sub­mit their re­serves plan to the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for ap­prov­al;

b.

de­scribe the as­sets in the re­serves that are ear­marked for cov­er­ing dis­pos­al costs;

c.

sub­mit an aud­it­ors’ re­port to the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil con­cern­ing com­pli­ance with the re­serves plan and the use of ear­marked re­serves.

³ The aud­it­ors shall in­spect the long-term fin­an­cial and in­vest­ment plans and veri­fy wheth­er the fin­an­cial re­sources are avail­able that are re­quired to cov­er dis­pos­al costs pri­or to de­com­mis­sion­ing and wheth­er the al­loc­a­tions of funds to re­serves have been car­ried out in ac­cord­ance with the re­serves plan.

¹ The rel­ev­ant fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies shall col­lect fees from ap­plic­ants for li­cences and from own­ers of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste, and shall re­quest re­mu­ner­a­tion of costs, in par­tic­u­lar for:

a.

the grant­ing, trans­fer, amend­ment, modi­fic­a­tion and with­draw­al of li­cences;

b.

the pre­par­a­tion of ex­pert re­ports;

c.

su­per­vis­ory activ­it­ies;

d.

Re­search and de­vel­op­ment activ­it­ies car­ried out by the Con­fed­er­a­tion or on its be­half with­in the scope of su­per­vis­ory du­ties for spe­cif­ic nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions.

² The rel­ev­ant fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies shall, in ad­di­tion, col­lect an an­nu­al fee from own­ers of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions to cov­er the costs of su­per­vis­ory activ­it­ies that can­not be charged to spe­cif­ic nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions. The amount con­cerned shall be cal­cu­lated on the basis of the av­er­age costs over the past five years, and shall be charged to each nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion in pro­por­tion to the chargeable ser­vices provided.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late this pro­ced­ure.

The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may col­lect fees from own­ers of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste, and re­quest re­mu­ner­a­tion of costs, in par­tic­u­lar for:

a.

the plan­ning and im­ple­ment­a­tion of emer­gency meas­ures;

b.

the pro­tec­tion provided by the po­lice for nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and for the trans­port of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als and ra­dio­act­ive waste;

c.

the train­ing of se­cur­ity guards;

d.

sur­veys of plots of land in the pro­tec­tion zone, their re­cord­ing in the land re­gister and entries in the land re­gister.

¹ In the event that can­ton­al sov­er­eignty should be af­fected as the res­ult of geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 35, deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies or pro­tec­tion zones, the li­cence hold­er shall com­pensate the can­ton con­cerned in full.

² Full com­pens­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 above shall also be paid if claims are made on can­ton­al wa­ter rights as the res­ult of the con­struc­tion of a nuc­le­ar power plant.

³ If no agree­ment can be reached on com­pens­a­tion, the com­pens­a­tion shall be de­term­ined by the Com­puls­ory Pur­chase Tribunal in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 64 of the CPA⁴⁷.⁴⁸

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion may pro­mote ap­plied re­search in­to the peace­ful use of nuc­le­ar en­ergy, es­pe­cially in­to the safety of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and in­to nuc­le­ar waste dis­pos­al.

² It may sup­port the edu­ca­tion of spe­cial­ised per­son­nel, or carry out its own train­ing pro­grammes.

³ As a rule, private in­di­vidu­als are only en­titled to re­ceive fin­an­cial as­sist­ance if they bear at least 50 per cent of the costs.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion may con­trib­ute to in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions and par­ti­cip­ate in in­ter­na­tion­al pro­jects con­nec­ted with the peace­ful use of nuc­le­ar en­ergy, and in par­tic­u­lar the non-pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuc­le­ar arms, safety, pub­lic health and en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion.

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.

man­u­fac­tures or sup­plies faulty com­pon­ents of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion that are im­port­ant in terms of nuc­le­ar safety or se­cur­ity;

b.

dam­ages, re­moves, renders un­us­able, uses in an im­prop­er man­ner or puts out of op­er­a­tion an in­stall­a­tion in a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion that is im­port­ant in terms of nuc­le­ar safety or se­cur­ity, or fails to in­stall or render such an in­stall­a­tion ready for op­er­a­tion;

c.

fails to ob­serve pro­tect­ive meas­ures that are im­port­ant in terms of nuc­le­ar safety or se­cur­ity when hand­ling nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als or ra­dio­act­ive waste

shall be li­able to cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing five years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁴⁹

² Any per­son who by com­mit­ting the fore­go­ing of­fences know­ingly en­dangers the life or health of a num­ber of hu­man be­ings, or causes dam­age to prop­erty of sig­ni­fic­ant value, shall be li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence of not less than one year.⁵⁰

³ If the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, the pen­alty shall be a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁵¹

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.

handles nuc­le­ar goods or ra­dio­act­ive waste without hold­ing the ne­ces­sary li­cence, or fails to com­ply with the con­di­tions or re­quire­ments stip­u­lated in a li­cence;

b.

when ap­ply­ing for a li­cence, provides es­sen­tial in­form­a­tion that is in­com­plete or false, or uses an ap­plic­a­tion that has been com­pleted by a third party;

c.⁵²

fails to de­clare or in­cor­rectly de­clares nuc­le­ar goods or ra­dio­act­ive waste when im­port­ing, ex­port­ing or con­vey­ing such mat­ter in trans­it;

d.

act­ively or pass­ively sup­plies, trans­fers or brokers nuc­le­ar goods or ra­dio­act­ive waste to an­oth­er end-user or des­tin­a­tion than the one named in the li­cence;

e.

sup­plies a per­son with nuc­le­ar goods or ra­dio­act­ive waste even though it is known or has to be as­sumed that the per­son con­cerned will dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly pass them on un­law­fully to an end-user;

f.

par­ti­cip­ates in the fin­an­cing of an il­leg­al trans­ac­tion with nuc­le­ar goods or ra­dio­act­ive waste, or me­di­ates in the fin­an­cing of such a trans­ac­tion

shall be li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁵³

² In ser­i­ous cases, the pen­alty shall be a cus­todi­al sen­tence of between one and ten years.⁵⁴

³ If the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he shall be li­able to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁵⁵

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.

con­structs or op­er­ates a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion without a li­cence;

b.

fails to ful­fil the ob­lig­a­tions arising from an op­er­at­ing li­cence for a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion (Art­icles 22 and 38), de­com­mis­sion­ing ob­lig­a­tions (Art­icle 26) or the ob­lig­a­tions as­so­ci­ated with the dis­pos­al of ra­dio­act­ive waste and the seal­ing of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory (Art­icle 31 and Art­icle 39, para­graphs 1 and 2);

c.

car­ries out op­er­a­tions that af­fect the pro­tec­tion zone of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory without hold­ing the ne­ces­sary li­cence;

d.

car­ries out an activ­ity that re­quires a per­mit without first ob­tain­ing the ne­ces­sary per­mit.

shall be li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁵⁶

² If the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he shall be li­able to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁵⁷

³ Any per­son who wil­fully car­ries out oth­er activ­it­ies that are sub­ject to the grant­ing of a li­cence in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of this Act or an im­ple­ment­ing or­din­ance, but who does not hold the re­quis­ite li­cence, shall be li­able to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁵⁸

⁴ If the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, the pen­alty shall be a fine not ex­ceed­ing 100,000 francs.⁵⁹

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.

ob­tains de­tails of secret facts or pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ures aimed at pro­tect­ing nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als or ra­dio­act­ive waste against in­ter­ven­tion by third parties or the ef­fects of armed con­flicts, in or­der to make them known, or make them ac­cess­ible to un­au­thor­ised parties, or to use the in­form­a­tion thus ob­tained them­selves in an un­au­thor­ised man­ner;

b.

makes such facts or meas­ures known or makes them ac­cess­ible to un­au­thor­ised parties

shall be li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁶⁰

² If the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he shall be li­able to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁶¹

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully sur­renders own­er­ship of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als or ra­dio­act­ive waste without the ne­ces­sary au­thor­isa­tion to do so shall be li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.

² If the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he shall be li­able to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.

re­fuses to provide in­form­a­tion, sub­mit doc­u­ment­a­tion or per­mit ac­cess to busi­ness premises or in­spec­tion of doc­u­ment­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 73, or gives false in­form­a­tion in this re­gard;

b.

fails to com­ply with a re­port­ing ob­lig­a­tion, an audit­ing and ac­count­ing ob­lig­a­tion or an ob­lig­a­tion to keep re­cords in ac­cord­ance with this Act, or in­fringes an im­ple­ment­ing or­din­ance;

c.

in­fringes in any oth­er way a pro­vi­sion of this Act or of an im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tion if the con­tra­ven­tion there­of is de­clared to be an of­fence, or of a rul­ing is­sued with a ref­er­ence to the pen­al­ties un­der this Art­icle, where no un­law­ful con­duct is in­volved that con­sti­tutes an­oth­er crim­in­al of­fence

shall be li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing 100,000 francs.⁶³

² At­tempts and aid­ing and abet­ting shall also be of­fences.

³ If the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he shall be li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing 40,000 francs.⁶⁴

For of­fences in ac­cord­ance with this Act, Art­icle 6 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974⁶⁵ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law ap­plies.

¹ A Swiss cit­izen who com­mits a felony or mis­de­mean­our in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 89 and 91 abroad shall be pun­ish­able by law even if the act is not sub­ject to pro­sec­u­tion in the coun­try con­cerned.

² If a par­ti­cipant in an of­fence com­mit­ted abroad has ac­ted with­in Switzer­land, the pro­vi­sions of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code ap­ply provided the main act is pun­ish­able by law in Switzer­land, ir­re­spect­ive of the law in the coun­try in which the main act was com­mit­ted.

The pre­script­ive peri­od for con­tra­ven­tions is five years.

A court may or­der the con­fis­ca­tion of ob­jects, without con­sid­er­a­tion as to the li­ab­il­ity of a giv­en per­son to pro­sec­u­tion, if no guar­an­tee is provided that the ob­jects will be used for law­ful pur­poses. Ob­jects thus con­fis­cated, and any pro­ceeds from the use or dis­pos­al there­of, shall be­come the prop­erty of the Con­fed­er­a­tion sub­ject to the Fed­er­al Act of 19 March 2004⁶⁸ on the Di­vi­sion of Con­fis­cated As­sets.

Any con­fis­cated as­sets or sub­sti­tute claims shall be­come the prop­erty of the Con­fed­er­a­tion sub­ject to the Fed­er­al Act of 19 March 2004⁷⁰ on the Di­vi­sion of Con­fis­cated As­sets.

Seizure of goods and as­sets un­der Art­icles 697 and 98 above shall also be sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of Art­icles 69–72 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code⁷².

¹ The pro­sec­u­tion and ad­ju­dic­a­tion of felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 88 to 92 above shall be sub­ject to the jur­is­dic­tion of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court.

² Con­tra­ven­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 93 shall be pro­sec­uted and ad­ju­dic­ated by the Fed­er­al Of­fice. These pro­ceed­ings shall be sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974⁷³ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law.

³ Li­cens­ing and su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies, can­ton­al and com­mun­al po­lice and cus­toms au­thor­it­ies are ob­liged to no­ti­fy the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al about any of­fences com­mit­ted against this Act that may come to their at­ten­tion in the course of their ser­vices and activ­it­ies or in any oth­er way.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing the en­force­ment of this Act.

² It may as­sign the spe­cific­a­tion of reg­u­la­tions to the De­part­ment or sub­or­din­ate au­thor­it­ies, tak­ing due ac­count of the im­port­ance there­of.

³ The au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall main­tain a cent­ral­ised ser­vice that pro­cures, pro­cesses and passes on data in­so­far as this is ne­ces­sary for the en­force­ment of this Act, the RPA⁷⁴, the pre­ven­tion of il­leg­al activ­it­ies and the pro­sec­u­tion of of­fend­ers.⁷⁵

⁴ The li­cens­ing and su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies shall main­tain of­fi­cial secrecy and take all pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ures to pre­vent eco­nom­ic es­pi­on­age.

⁵ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may call on the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies to as­sist with the en­force­ment of this Act.

⁶ With­in the scope of its own com­pet­en­cies, the en­force­ment au­thor­ity may call on third parties to as­sist with the en­force­ment of this Act, in par­tic­u­lar for car­ry­ing out ex­am­in­a­tions and in­spec­tions.

The rel­ev­ant fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies and can­ton­al and com­mun­al po­lice may ex­change data among them­selves and with the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies, in­so­far as this is ne­ces­sary for the en­force­ment of this Act.

¹ The fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for en­force­ment, con­trol, pre­ven­tion of il­leg­al acts or pro­sec­u­tion of of­fend­ers may work to­geth­er with the rel­ev­ant au­thor­it­ies of oth­er coun­tries and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions and com­mit­tees and co-or­din­ate the pro­cure­ment of data, in­so­far as this is ne­ces­sary for the en­force­ment of this Act or of equi­val­ent for­eign le­gis­la­tion, and the for­eign au­thor­it­ies or in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions or com­mit­tees are ob­liged to ob­serve of­fi­cial secrecy or are bound to an equi­val­ent secrecy ob­lig­a­tion.

² They may spe­cific­ally re­quest for­eign au­thor­it­ies and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions or com­mit­tees to sup­ply the ne­ces­sary data. For this pur­pose, they may provide data con­cern­ing:

a.

the nature, quant­ity, des­tin­a­tion and in­ten­ded place of use, in­ten­ded pur­pose and re­cip­i­ent of nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste;

b.

people who are in­volved in the man­u­fac­ture, sup­ply, broker­age or fin­an­cing of nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste;

c.

fin­an­cing of as­so­ci­ated trans­ac­tions;

d.

ac­ci­dents and oc­cur­rences of sig­ni­fic­ance in terms of safety.

³ If the for­eign coun­try con­cerned has signed a re­cip­roc­al rights agree­ment with Switzer­land, the rel­ev­ant fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies may sup­ply it with data in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 at their own dis­cre­tion or upon re­quest, as long as the for­eign au­thor­ity or au­thor­it­ies guar­an­tee that the data:

a.

will only be used for pur­poses in keep­ing with the pro­vi­sions of this Act, and;

b.

will only be used in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings if they have sub­sequently been pro­cured in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of in­ter­na­tion­al leg­al as­sist­ance.

⁴ They may also provide in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions or com­mit­tees with data un­der the same con­di­tions as those cited in para­graph 3 above, though here the re­quire­ment of re­cip­roc­al rights may be waived.

⁵ The above clauses shall re­main sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing mu­tu­al in­ter­na­tion­al as­sist­ance in crim­in­al mat­ters.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may con­clude bi­lat­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments con­cern­ing:

a.

the hand­ling of nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste;

b.

se­cur­ity and con­trol meas­ures for nuc­le­ar goods and ra­dio­act­ive waste;

c.

ex­change of in­form­a­tion re­gard­ing the con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions.

² With­in the scope of ap­proved cred­its, it may con­clude agree­ments con­cern­ing par­ti­cip­a­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al pro­jects in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 87.

The re­peal and amend­ment of cur­rent le­gis­la­tion is reg­u­lated in the An­nex.

¹ Nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions that re­quire a gen­er­al li­cence in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of this Act, and which are already in op­er­a­tion, may con­tin­ue to be op­er­ated without the cor­res­pond­ing li­cence as long as no changes are made that re­quire an amend­ment of the gen­er­al li­cence in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 65 para­graph 1.

^1bis The grant­ing of gen­er­al li­cences for modi­fic­a­tions to ex­ist­ing nuc­le­ar power plants is pro­hib­ited.⁷⁶

² Own­ers of ex­ist­ing nuc­le­ar power plants are re­quired to demon­strate with­in a peri­od of ten years that ar­range­ments for the man­age­ment of ra­dio­act­ive waste arising from these plants is as­sured, if the Fed­er­al Coun­cil does not already deem this as­sur­ance to have been provided. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­tend this dead­line by five years in jus­ti­fied cir­cum­stances.

³ An op­er­at­ing li­cence for an ex­ist­ing nuc­le­ar power plant may be trans­ferred to a new own­er without a gen­er­al li­cence. Art­icle 13 para­graph 2, Art­icle 31 para­graph 3 and Art­icle 66 para­graph 2 ap­ply ana­log­ously.

⁴ …⁷⁷

¹ This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall pub­lish this Act in the Swiss Fed­er­al Gaz­ette if the two pop­u­lar ini­ti­at­ives, “Morator­i­um Plus” and “Elec­tri­city without Atom­ic En­ergy” are with­drawn or have been re­jec­ted.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the date on which this Act comes in­to force.

Com­mence­ment date: 1 Feb­ru­ary 2005⁷⁸
with the ex­cep­tion of Num­ber II/6 of the An­nex: 1 Janu­ary 2005⁷⁹.