It has been agreed by all the parties involved in the qualification process (the Utility, the Regulatory Body and the Authorised Inspection Agency) to define a pragmatic approach, based on the ENIQ "European Methodology" document.

The Belgian policy is thus a combination of the two approaches. It proposes a general scheme to cover the qualification of every type of UT inspection on a case by case basis. The pursued objective is to optimise the qualification procedure proposed by the ASME XI code, considering safety goals and economical considerations.

This paper will present this Belgian policy for qualification and emphasise some points of the strategy: multidisciplinary co-operation between NDT specialists, mechanical and ISI engineers, Safety Authorities and plant operator; realistic and appropriate requirements; wider vision than code prescriptive requirements; technical justification; etc... These particular working aspects have proved to be effective in order to combine the different methodologies, guidelines and rules into one coherent and pragmatic approach.

The implementation of this strategy will be illustrated by some examples of activities in the framework of qualification.