Data disclosure only fuels nuclear debate

Date: 19/10/1995

By Michael Mann and Ole Ryborg

FRANCE this week gave the European Commission additional data on its nuclear testing programme in the wake of a special European Parliament hearing which served only to underline the very wide divisions over the tests in the South Pacific.

The new report, which includes data on radioactivity monitoring at the Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls, is France's response to the letter sent by the Commission to Paris last week demanding the information it lacked in order to judge whether France has respected its health and safety obligations under Article 34 of the Euratom Treaty.

The Commission will make its final judgement at a special meeting called for next Monday (23 October).

Meanwhile, two days of discussions involving five European Parliament committees this week illustrated just how diverse attitudes to the tests are and just how many issues they raise.

Ken Collins, chairman of the Parliament's environment committee and organiser of the event, concluded that there was a “tremendous dearth of reliable and representative information” on public health questions and that evidence from several speakers contradicted the view that the tests were environmentally-safe. A resolution will be presented to next week's plenary session of the Parliament once the Commission's decision is known, said Collins.

Augustin Janssens, who led the Commission verification mission to French Polynesia last month, told parliamentarians that lack of full access to the test sites had made it impossible to “give an unreserved view on the efficiency and adequacy of the overall surveillance system in place”.

Jean-Louis Dewost, Director-General of the Commission's legal service, stressed that the hardest task was to establish what constituted a “particularly dangerous experiment” as set out under the Euratom Treaty.

The Commission felt it should form its own opinion on the basis of information from France and from its own surveys.

Dewost said that when inspectors wished to check monitoring stations where access was limited due to military secrecy, it was the Commission's view that the balance of competence between member states and the Commission had to be judged on a case-by-case basis.

Other experts pointed to the risk of radioactive material escaping from the test sites and a lack of proper medical testing records in the region. Economic damage would result from reported declines in the tourist trade, claimed Bikeni Paenu, of the South Pacific environment programme.

The failure of Alain Barthoux, of the French atomic energy agency, to accept an invitation to attend the session led Collins to conclude “that the shroud of secrecy in this affair is as complete as ever”.

But National Assembly deputy Pierre Lellouche defended the French government and denounced what he described as “deliberate political manipulation” of the situation.

Patricia Lewis, of the London Verification Technology Information Centre, suggested that the recent tests would be necessary to enable France to take part in the mooted Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) if France had less data at its disposal than the US and UK. The only reason France would have for a new series of tests would be if it intended to build new weapons. Another expert believed that the tests might actually improve the conditions for the signing of a CTBT.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that a confidential report prepared by DGXII, the Directorate-General for research under French Commissioner Edith Cresson, is highly critical of the way the whole issue has been handled by DGXI, the Directorate-General for the environment.

The document claims that the draft letter presented to the Commission for approval by Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard last week asked for information beyond the remit of the treaty.

The Commission's initial report from 4 September also comes in for criticism for being too subjective and not containing enough solid data. DGXI is then attacked for failing to compare all the information on offer with EU norms.

The report also claims that the Commission had no need to demand access to the Fangataufa atoll and no right to require details on the source of radiation as this would require France to release potentially sensitive military secrets.

Cresson's report is being seen by some as a French attempt to return the debate to a purely technical level following Bjerregaard's openly political statements on the testing issue.