Wednesday 12 July 2017

Nobody thinks it's a good idea to leave Euratom, but apparently we have to



Hard on the heels of January's Supreme Court judgement which told the government an act of parliament was required to kick off the Article 50 process came a bill to do just that.  In the explanatory notes which accompanied it was a small bombshell - according to the government, leaving the EU also meant leaving the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), which governs and enables cooperation in peaceful nuclear power and research.

Euratom did not feature in the referendum campaign last June, and government had not previously said anything about it.  The announcement drew criticism from politicians - "This 'Brexatom' will be legally and politically complicated and costly" - and the nuclear industry - "It’s bad news for the industry, bad news for opponents and critics of the industry as well.  It’s a lose-lose situation, whereby the industry becomes less competitive and less safe" - and later - "Legislating for it doesn’t make it happen...  We have to have the people to be able to do it, the equipment, the training in place”.  A legal view came from the always helpful EU Law Analysis project.

When the queen's speech was published in June and included a Nuclear Safeguards Bill to replace European safeguards with a British system of oversight, further doubt was expressed.  The Times told us "experts say that this would not match the regime provided by the EU body, meaning that plants, research facilities and hospitals may be unable to import radioactive material after Brexit.  Officials from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy have warned that it will take seven years to replace the current set of agreements".

And in the week that Theresa May is calling for cross-party working on shared policy priorities, Ed Vaizey (Conservative) and Rachel Reeves (Labour) did indeed get together to publish a piece in the Sunday Telegraph (reproduced here) which she might not be too keen on:  "We believe there is an opportunity for a rethink. Both our parties are committed to implementing the result of the referendum on EU membership, even though we both campaigned to remain.  But this is not about EU membership.  Our co-operation on nuclear issues predates the EU".

Tom Chivers, recipient today of an award from the Royal Statistical Society, spoke to some scientists.




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People who voted for the Article 50 bill are suddenly having second thoughts.




And the editorial in that edition of the Standard claims (on the inside information of its new editor no doubt) that "the Royal College of Radiologists fears withdrawing from Euratom would endanger the import of the radioisotopes from Europe used in cancer scans and the treatment of 10,000 patients here.  It was Mrs May who overruled Mr Davis and others in the Cabinet, such as Greg Clarke, to insist that we sacrifice those sensible international arrangements on the altar of the dogmatic purity of Brexit.  That rigid approach now faces humiliating defeat in Parliament, as a growing number of Conservative MPs make clear they will rebel".

There's just one problem.  An amendment which would have excluded Euratom from the Article 50 notification was defeated before Conservative and Labour MPs were whipped to pass the clean, unamended bill which May demanded.  And the letter notifying the EU Council of the UK's decision to leave the Union therefore included the words "in accordance with the same Article 50(2) as applied by Article 106a of the Treaty Establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, I hereby notify the European Council of the United Kingdom's intention to withdraw from the European Atomic Energy Community.  References in this letter to the European Union should therefore be taken to include a reference to the European Atomic Energy Community".

Dominic Cummings, one of the evil back room twins in the Vote Leave campaign, has been telling us about the risks of Brexit (no, really) and he isn't at all happy with this proposal (sorry about the language).






Accordingly, the queen's speech in June (page 24) included an outline of a Nuclear Safeguards Bill to "establish a UK nuclear safeguards regime as we leave the European Union and Euratom".  The benefits (objectives would be a more honest word) are "to ensure that the UK continues to meet our international obligations for nuclear safeguards, as applies to civil nuclear material through the International Atomic Energy Agency" and "to continue the UK’s reputation as a responsible nuclear state, to support international nuclear non-proliferation, and to protect UK electricity supplied by nuclear power".

How is all this to be achieved?  By giving the Office for Nuclear Regulation (which already exists, but only as the safety regulator for the civil nuclear industry) "powers to take on the role and responsibilities required to meet our international safeguards, and nuclear non-proliferation obligations".  Easy.
In response the EU published a position paper on nuclear materials and safeguard equipment, setting out their negotiating position as:

"The United Kingdom is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency ("IAEA") and bound by international conventions to which it is a party in its own right.  From the withdrawal date, the United Kingdom will have sole responsibility for ensuring its compliance with international obligations arising therefrom.

"Given that the Treaty will cease to apply in the United Kingdom, it appears appropriate that the Withdrawal Agreement set out arrangements for the transfer of the ownership of special fissile materials and Community property located in the United Kingdom used for the purposes of providing safeguards to the United Kingdom, respecting the Community's obligations under international agreements.

"The Withdrawal Agreement should also provide that the United Kingdom assume all rights and obligations associated with the ownership of materials or property transferred and should regulate other questions related to material and property under the Treaty, in particular safeguards obligations."

With political opposition to leaving Euratom growing (despite the facts above, that MPs have already explicitly voted for it) lawyers are looking at the possibilities.  My usual reference David Allen Green says it wouldn't be easy and it couldn't be done by the UK acting unilaterally.  The Times, quoted in this same thread, disagrees but with less legal authority.




Interested MPs gathered this morning to debate Euratom membership.  Almost all of them expressed concern at the possibility of a cliff edge - leaving on 29 March 2019 whether or not we have replacement arrangements - and even the hardened Brexiter David Jones accepted that a continuing relationship during the fabled transition/implementation period would probably be required.

Many MPs have constituency interests - Copeland for Sellafield, Henley for the fusion research plant at Culham, Barrow for the proposed (but shaky) new power plant at Moorfield, and others - and extra complications came up, such as the need to reconstruct a number of agreements with Japan, the United States and Canada among others.  Several proposed associate membership of the treaty like Ukraine or Switzerland.

Bernard Jenkin, MP for Harwich and North Essex stll maintains the childlike belief in the simplicity of Brexit:  "why should the case for staying in Euratom not apply to every other agency that we will leave when we leave the European Union? As we leave those other agencies and regulatory bodies, we will set up our own, under international standards. Why can that not also be done with Euratom?"

To which my response is, exactly.  Reproducing arrangements, bodies and processes we currently have, trying not to lose too much of the "exact same benefits" due to an arms length relationship, and paying for it all is a major part of what Brexit is all about, and why any Brexit premium is illusory.  Paul Blomfield, summing up for Labour picked up on Jenkin's point and also quoted ex-DExEU chief of staff James Chapman's view, that if the prime minister doesn't shift her position on Euratom, "parliament will shift it for her".

Richard Harrington, a junior minister in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, presented the government view:
  • "The Government are determined that the nuclear industry in this country should continue to flourish in trade, regulation and innovative nuclear research. We are determined to have a constructive, collaborative relationship with Euratom."
  • Medical radioisotopes are not subject to nuclear safeguards.  They are covered by the Euratom treaty, but there are no restrictions on export outside the EU - "our ability to access medical isotopes produced in Europe will not be affected".  (This needs pursuing further.  These materials are not covered by the same safeguards as nuclear fuels, but the supply chain is regulated, and a relationship with the Euratom Supply Agency and Nuclear Observatory would be required).
  • "Our primary aim will be to maintain our mutually successful civil nuclear co-operation with Euratom and the rest of the world."
  • "We are preparing the domestic Nuclear Safeguards Bill, we are opening negotiations with the EU, we are talking to third countries about bilateral agreements, and we are talking to the International Atomic Energy Agency."  Which should allay the fears of those who fear a long, sequential project (though it appears to oversimplify the work involved more than somewhat).
Harrington finished with "our own position paper will be published imminently" and then, on enquiry, "imminently means imminently" (he was rather proud of that line).  Please note, the EU27's position paper was placed in the public repository on 23 June.

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When May delivered a statement on her attendance of the G20 summit over the weekend, Euratom was suddenly a popular topic for questions.  Her basic answer was "We have to leave, but we hope to re-establish exactly the same relationship with Euratom".  Hilary Benn (re-elected today to chair the DExEU select committee) asked it simply:  "What does the UK gain from leaving Euratom?", to which she replied that the two treaties are inextricably linked, that we therefore have to do it, and that we should wait for the bill.  Standard Maybot fobbing off basically.

"Freeing ourselves from the shackles of Euratom" seems the perfect microcosm (and a bloody big microcosm at that) for Brexit.  Time, effort, money, the opportunity cost of what all the DExEU civil servants might be doing instead...  But at present the sickly juggernaut staggers on.

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