nuclear-news

UK nuclear whinging about Brexit? Blame Boris the Buffoon!

“The UK says the bloc is unfairly excluding it from the Copernicus earth observation project, the Horizon Europe research fund and the nuclear regulator Euratom…”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-15/uk-set-to-begin-formal-dispute-with-eu-over-science-programs

So the Uk is taking legal action. These are seperate agreements to the Withdrawal Agreement that the EU is taking legal action on (because of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, Data and other issues).

How will this effect the the UK nuclear industry and wider nuclear co-operation and funding?

Lets see what the agreement is all about.

From EU website

“It provides for wide-ranging cooperation on safe and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, underpinned by commitments by both Euratom and the UK to comply with international non-proliferation obligations and uphold a high level of nuclear safety standards.”

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/relations-non-eu-countries/relations-united-kingdom/eu-uk-trade-and-cooperation-agreement/eu-uk-agreement-cooperation-safe-and-peaceful-uses-nuclear-energy_en

Well I have not seen any reference to the non proliferation aspect of this disagreement but it would surely be an issue for EU if UK decides to go ahead with this legal challenge. The UK has been chastised for increasing the number of weapons that will increase to over a set figure set by NPT agreements for starters and you should go to CND UK for more detailed info on this thorny topic.

More generally the EU UK agreement concerning EURATOM caters for these points;

What the EU-UK Agreement for cooperation on the safe and peaceful uses of nuclear energy enables

• the supply and transfer of nuclear material, non-nuclear material, technology and equipment;
• trade and commercial cooperation relating to the nuclear fuel cycle;
• cooperation in the safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste;
• nuclear safety and radiation protection;
• use of radioisotopes and radiation in agriculture, industry and medicine;
• geological and geophysical exploration;
• development, production, further processing and use of uranium resources.

Of course as we see from the Ukraine crisis the info that EU gets about 20% of its nuclear fuel from Russia and EDF are supposed to make big investments in UK nuclear builds (1 a year according to the oaf Boris Johnson).

Radioisotopes for health might be impacted though the EU has been considerate concerning medicines re Northern Ireland Protocol issues. It may be that the EU will have a light touch concerning other aspects but I do wonder how they will view an increase in nuclear weapons?

There are some legal thoughts that the UK may have a case as this issue was agreed seperate to the Withdrawal Agreement and the UK may have some sort of case.

I will keep an eye on this topic but this was just a update on this development for Nuclear-News.net readers. Feel free to opine or leave links in the comments section on your thoughts.

Regards Shaun McGee aka arclight2011

August 16, 2022 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized