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UK threatens to return radioactive waste to EU without nuclear deal

Brexit department warns EU counterparts it will ‘return waste to its country of origin’ if an agreement on nuclear cooperation cannot be reached, Guardian, Daniel Boffey 20 July 17, Britain has warned the EU that it could return boatloads of radioactive waste back to the continent if the Brexit talks fail to deliver an agreement on nuclear regulation.

In what is being taken in Brussels as a thinly veiled threat, a paper setting out the UK position for the negotiations stresses the right “to return radioactive waste … to its country of origin” should negotiations collapse.

The UK paper, detailing the British government’s hopes for future cooperation once it leaves the Euratom treaty, at the same time as leaving the EU, further stresses the “strong mutual interest in ensuring close cooperation in the future”.

Britain currently has a 126-tonne stockpile of radioactive materials originating from EU countries such as Germany, Italy and Sweden.

The state-owned Sellafield plant in Cumbria has been reprocessing spent nuclear field from across Europe since the 1970s, producing reusable uranium, plutonium and radioactive waste. Almost a fifth of the UK’s stockpile of civilian plutonium at Sellafield originates from overseas…….

Britain has signalled that while it is leaving the Euraotom treaty, of which it has been a member since 1957, it wants to continue to cooperate on nuclear regulation after the UK leaves the union in March 2019. The treaty regulates the civilian use of atomic technology and critics of the government’s position fear there is a threat of disruption to UK supplies of nuclear reactor parts, fuel and medical isotopes vital for the treatment of cancer if a new agreement outside membership of the EU is not reached……

The EU insist, however, that such cooperation on nuclear regulation would require the UK to recognise the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, which is a red line for Theresa May…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/19/uk-threatens-to-return-radioactive-waste-to-eu-without-nuclear-deal

July 21, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, UK