Abstract :
[en] In Belgium, Nuclear Waste Management (NWM) is conducted by a Federal Agency called ONDRAF - i.e. the “National Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials”. Adhering to a largely accepted vision, NWM is considered by ONDRAF as a long-term and complex issue, consisting in technical, social, economic and ethical questions. In this respect, scientific literature invites to clarify and address those aspects in a decision-making process that could benefit from meaningful public participation (Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthes 2001). In this context, many stakeholders (e.g. citizens, researchers, industrialists, civil society organizations, the European Union... and ONDRAF itself) are in demand of a “conductor” that can organize, ensure and legitimize such a participatory decision-making process.
Many questions emerge from this demand. Who can be the gatekeeper of this process? What could be his role? For which purposes? In addition to that, how should participation be organized/assessed/controlled? To that regard, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I elaborate a possible definition of “gatekeeping a participatory decision-making process concerning NWM in Belgium”. Second, I question the possible role of Technology Assessment (TA) - as an institution as well as a set of approached - in this context. To address those questions, I rely on a combination of theoretical and empirical materials – i.e. semi directive interviews with policy makers and members of Belgian and French agencies in charge of NWM.
