EU Statement on Agenda item 3: Nuclear security: Nuclear Security Review 2026

Chair, 

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Republic of Moldova, San Marino, and Ukraine align themselves with this statement.

We thank Director General Grossi and the IAEA Secretariat for the Nuclear Security Review.

The EU reaffirms the central role of the IAEA in promoting, sustaining, and strengthening the global nuclear security architecture. We fully support the Agency’s implementation of its nuclear security programme. 

Chair,

We underline the Agency’s role in promoting the universalisation and implementation of relevant international instruments, in particular the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and its Amendment, as well as the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. We thank the Agency for assisting Member States in meeting their obligations and commitments. We encourage all States to join these international instruments. We look forward to the preparation for the second Conference of the Parties to the ACPPNM, to be held in April 2027. 

The IAEA’s nuclear security activities are dependent on timely and reliable funding, both from the Nuclear Security Fund and the Regular Budget. The EU and its Member States are major contributors to the Nuclear Security Fund and encourage all IAEA Member States to support it. Since 2003, the EU has contributed nearly €67 million to the IAEA’s nuclear security activities. The latest €7.2 million allocation covers capacity building worldwide, support to Ukraine, and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme. We are now working together with the IAEA on the next EU financial support to the Agency’s nuclear security activities. We note that a significant funding shortfall remains in certain nuclear security subprogrammes, this trend must be reversed urgently to keep up adequate and timely implementation of programmes. Thus, we call on other donors to step up their support to reduce the Agency’s funding gap.

The EU underscores the importance of building qualified expertise in nuclear security and notes that more than half of IAEA international training events in this field held in 2025 were hosted at the Nuclear Security Training and Demonstration Centre (NSTDC) in Seibersdorf. Other national centres of excellence in EU Member States are also providing training activities complementary to the NSTDC. We note with satisfaction an increase in the share of female participants in nuclear security training activities in 2025. These feed into broader Agency efforts to reduce disparities in workforce diversity, including in relation to gender equality.

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has been working closely with the IAEA to identify synergies between its EUSECTRA training centre and the NSTDC. We are pleased that this effort has led to the development of a Joint JRC/IAEA Training Course on Gamma Spectrometry for Material Out of Regulatory Control, which will be delivered in November this year. The practical arrangement, concluded between the JRC and the IAEA last year, also enables further collaborations and knowledge-sharing and has already hosted the first trainees under the IAEA Nuclear Security Fellowship Programme at the JRC’s premises at Karlsruhe. 

We appreciate the update on the Agency’s efforts in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and welcome several events organised on this matter last year. We expect further information about the lessons learnt from the International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Energy held in December at the Agency, and what this means for the Agency’s programme of activities. We would welcome a more developed overview of the associated challenges and risks of AI usage. We also look forward to the Conference on Computer Security in the Nuclear World: Securing the Future (CyberCon26), that will take place in May. This Conference should provide a valuable platform for technical exchanges and the sharing of best practices in addressing emerging cyber threats to nuclear security.

We welcome that the Nuclear Security Working Group under the Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI) made significant progress in the implementation of its programme of work on various aspects of SMR-specific security issues. We invite the Secretariat to keep us informed of further progress and achievements during the ongoing Phase II of NHSI. 

Chair,

The EU is deeply concerned that nuclear security continues to be jeopardised by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. We commend the IAEA for its support and assistance missions in Ukraine, including in ensuring the radiation safety and nuclear security of radioactive sources. We again encourage the Secretariat to keep Member States informed of the progress towards reviewing nuclear security guidance in armed conflict situations and reiterate our request for a paper on this topic.

Finally, Chair, we commend the efforts made to better differentiate the Review from the Nuclear Security Report, but a more analytical perspective on global trends in nuclear security would be appreciated, in order for the Review to better explain how these trends will influence the Programme over the next years. 

With these comments, Chair, the EU takes note of the Nuclear Security Review 2026, as contained in GOV/2026/3.

Thank you, Chair.