Supervision of the site selection procedure

The Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) monitors and supervises the search for a repository for high-level radioactive waste in Germany. A federally owned company, the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE mbH), is in charge of the search. BASE ensures that the search proceeds as stipulated by the Site Selection Act.

BASE supervises BGE mbH’s compliance with the predefined procedural steps and ensures adherence to the geoscientific and safety requirements of the Act. If necessary, BASE can also enforce compliance by way of administrative orders.

Furthermore, BASE has the legal mandate to examine proposals by BGE mbH at different stages of the site selection procedure, and to carry out its own technical assessments. This takes place

• when BGE mbH proposes siting regions that are to be further investigated above ground,
• when the company proposes sites to be explored underground,
• as soon as the federal company has completed the exploration work and the siting decision is due.

At the end of each phase, based on the proposals and exploration results of the BGE mbH, BASE will prepare a recommendation to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection. As part of the final site comparison, BASE shall identify the site that achieves the best possible safety, and propose it to the legislator. BASE is also responsible for defining exploration programmes and test criteria.

Safety is paramount to all BASE decisions. They must be comprehensible and based on clearly defined processes and responsibilities. To make the procedure transparent, the core documents on the repository are published on an information platform online. BASE set up the information platform at the very beginning of the site selection in 2017.

It was legally determined at the beginning of the repository search procedure that a siting decision was to be made in 2031. However, according to current information from the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung mbH (BGE), their work will take significantly longer than expected. The institutions involved are now evaluating the conclusions to be drawn from this for the procedure.

BASE is the planning approval and licensing authority for the final repository, and will also supervise its construction and operation under nuclear law.

The relationship between BASE and other actors in the procedure

BASE oversees the implementation of the site selection procedure. This includes supervising compliance with the legal requirements of the procedure. BASE is not responsible for corporate management of BGE mbH, who is the implementer of the repository search. This is the responsibility of the Federal Ministry for the Environment.

In addition, BASE performs technical and content-related duties within the legally defined framework. This means, for example, that it advises BMUV on technical and procedural issues, including draft amendments to the law. This role results from the relationship between BASE and the BMUV: the BMUV is the technical supervisor of BASE, and ensures that the BASE's actions are lawful and expedient. As a public company run by the state, the BGE mbH’s sole shareholder is the Federal Republic of Germany; the BMUV is acting on behalf of the federal government. Shareholder control is exercised by means of economic plans, among other things. There is no technical supervision by the state - i.e. by the BMUV or BASE - of its associated companies organised under private law.