Federation Council approves the “tunnel law”

24.01.2007 // REGNUM

On Jan 24 Federation Council approved the presidential law “On the Peculiarities of the Management of the Property and Shares of Organizations Using Nuclear Energy and On Relevant Changes to Some Legislative Acts”

The law is aimed at reforming the nuclear power complex and setting up a vertically-integrated company Atomenergoprom comprising all enterprises of the civil sector of the nuclear power industry: JSCs, corporized federal state unitary enterprises (FSUE), the property complexes of FSUE and federal state organizations. The companies will have the right to manage their property. Atomenergoprom, its daughter and affiliated companies will be able to commit their shares to trust only with the consent of the President. To remind, the law does not cover the defense sector of the nuclear power industry.

Atomenergoprom will cover the whole nuclear fuel production cycle: enterprises extracting uranium, producing fuel and electricity, building NPPs in Russia and abroad and making machines, as well as research and development organizations. In the future, FSUE will be corporized according to the list to be approved by the President against relevant licenses. 100% of the shares of all JSC, including Atomenergoprom, will belong to the state. Only Russian organizations having relevant licenses will have the right to operate the nuclear units owned by legal entities and to circulate nuclear materials. The law provides for NPP safety measures and guarantees nonproliferation of nuclear materials and technologies in case of the bankruptcy of their operators. Each half year the Government should report to the State Duma and the Federation Council on the course of the reforms.
  
Atomenergoprom will also control federal state special educational institutions, namely, the three institutes in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Obninsk. The member of the State Duma Committee on Energy, Transport and Communication Valentin Ivanov (United Russia parliamentary group) says that it would be wrong to leave them in the form of FSUE and not to give them to the state as it would then be impossible to support them.