In the past two years France has become the champion of nuclear sales to Middle Eastern countries. Many see its agenda as being driven purely by commercial considerations. Others are worried by the risks of proliferation in a volatile region. The reality is different, and it is useful to debunk a few myths.While commercial interests are of course at play, the prime driver of France's atomic diplomacy is political. And far from being lax at nuclear export controls, Paris is keen to ensure that any nuclear transfers will not involve proliferation risks.
Some refer to French practices of the mid-1950s onwards as a source of concern. This is understandable: until the mid-1970s France was a major seller of sensitive nuclear technologies around the world. It helped Israel to develop nuclear weapons in the late 1950s. It sold a “research” reactor to Iraq of a type that was well-suited for military activities, and also a reprocessing plant to Pakistan that could have allowed Islamabad to extract plutonium (that contract was later cancelled). It is fair to say that France did not have the most stringent nuclear exports controls policy. At that time there was fierce competition among western companies for domination of the then-promising nuclear energy market, and controlling the risks of nuclear proliferation was a secondary concern in Europe.
How things change. Paris is now one of the most vocal proponents of strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The 1991 Gulf war was the turning point. Like many other countries, France was stunned to learn that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had been able to develop a massive secret nuclear military project under the nose of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This was when French leaders realised that nuclear proliferation risks in the Middle East were an undeniable reality. More recently, France has become gravely concerned by the Iranian nuclear issue. It believes that an Iranian bomb would endanger the whole non-proliferation regime, make the Middle East a more dangerous place and create a major threat to Europe.
Nicolas Sarkozy made a strategic choice when he became president in May 2007. He decided that France would deliberately and actively promote the sale of civilian nuclear technologies to the Middle East. This is primarily about responding to Iranian rhetoric, which says that western attitudes towards its nuclear programme show that Europe and the United States wish to deny the benefits of peaceful technologies to the rest of the world, and that this is a double standard. An additional reason, according to France, is that promoting the development of the Middle East is a strategic interest for Europe. To ensure that these sales would not create proliferation risks, France's stated policy is to sell only reactors, only of a light-water type (which are not adaptable for military use) along with the necessary fuel, and only to countries with exemplary non-proliferation rules and regulations.
Are there also commercial interests at play? Of course there are – especially since many Middle East countries have hydrocarbon resources in which France is interested. But for the powerful French nuclear industry the Middle East is not the number one priority. In a context of nuclear energy “renaissance”, the demand is such that suppliers can choose their clients. And for technical, financial and legal reasons their first choice is to sell nuclear power plants to countries that already have them – in Europe, the US and Asia. Furthermore, very few countries today have the resources, either financial or technical, to host massive light-water reactors of the kind sold by the French company
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Bruno Tertrais
In the past two years France has become the champion of nuclear sales to Middle Eastern countries. Many see its agenda as being driven purely by commercial considerations. Others are worried by the risks of proliferation in a volatile region. The reality is different, and it is useful to debunk a few myths.While commercial interests are of course at play, the prime driver of France's atomic diplomacy is political. And far from being lax at nuclear export controls, Paris is keen to ensure that any nuclear transfers will not involve proliferation risks.
Some refer to French practices of the mid-1950s onwards as a source of concern. This is understandable: until the mid-1970s France was a major seller of sensitive nuclear technologies around the world. It helped Israel to develop nuclear weapons in the late 1950s. It sold a “research” reactor to Iraq of a type that was well-suited for military activities, and also a reprocessing plant to Pakistan that could have allowed Islamabad to extract plutonium (that contract was later cancelled). It is fair to say that France did not have the most stringent nuclear exports controls policy. At that time there was fierce competition among western companies for domination of the then-promising nuclear energy market, and controlling the risks of nuclear proliferation was a secondary concern in Europe.
How things change. Paris is now one of the most vocal proponents of strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The 1991 Gulf war was the turning point. Like many other countries, France was stunned to learn that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had been able to develop a massive secret nuclear military project under the nose of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This was when French leaders realised that nuclear proliferation risks in the Middle East were an undeniable reality. More recently, France has become gravely concerned by the Iranian nuclear issue. It believes that an Iranian bomb would endanger the whole non-proliferation regime, make the Middle East a more dangerous place and create a major threat to Europe.
Nicolas Sarkozy made a strategic choice when he became president in May 2007. He decided that France would deliberately and actively promote the sale of civilian nuclear technologies to the Middle East. This is primarily about responding to Iranian rhetoric, which says that western attitudes towards its nuclear programme show that Europe and the United States wish to deny the benefits of peaceful technologies to the rest of the world, and that this is a double standard. An additional reason, according to France, is that promoting the development of the Middle East is a strategic interest for Europe. To ensure that these sales would not create proliferation risks, France's stated policy is to sell only reactors, only of a light-water type (which are not adaptable for military use) along with the necessary fuel, and only to countries with exemplary non-proliferation rules and regulations.
Are there also commercial interests at play? Of course there are – especially since many Middle East countries have hydrocarbon resources in which France is interested. But for the powerful French nuclear industry the Middle East is not the number one priority. In a context of nuclear energy “renaissance”, the demand is such that suppliers can choose their clients. And for technical, financial and legal reasons their first choice is to sell nuclear power plants to countries that already have them – in Europe, the US and Asia. Furthermore, very few countries today have the resources, either financial or technical, to host massive light-water reactors of the kind sold by the French company Areva.
For these reasons, most of the recent “framework nuclear agreements” with Middle East countries will result only in cooperative research, training and technical assistance, for instance in the fields of medicine or agriculture. In some cases France seeks also cooperation in the exploitation of uranium resources. Areva is interested in diversifying its uranium supplies, and has signed agreements with Morocco and Jordan for the extraction of uranium from phosphates.
This has led to some misunderstandings between France and its potential customers, and even to tensions between the French government and the nuclear industry. For instance, in August 2008 Paris announced its readiness to sell a reactor to Libya on the occasion of Mr Sarkozy's visit to Tripoli. However, it appears that Areva – which had reportedly not been consulted before the announcement – has no plans to follow up the offer. It is not interested in selling a reactor to a country that has no significant nuclear industry, and whose political leader is prone to abrupt policy changes. Likewise, even though during his presidential election campaign Mr Sarkozy had indicated that Algeria could be the “poster child” for this new French policy, there are no actual plans to sell nuclear reactors to Algiers.
The UAE, however, holds a special place in France's nuclear diplomatic campaign. Although the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has not decided on which supplier might provide plants for any future nuclear sector in the UAE, nor on the potential number of units to be procured, the UAE is currently the only Middle East country to which France actually wants to sell nuclear reactors.There are two reasons for this. First, the UAE has devised a credible strategic plan for the development of its civilian nuclear industry, embodied in the April 2008 White Paper. Second, any deal would be part of a comprehensive “strategic partnership” based on mutual interests that Paris has been keen to develop since the mid-1990s. It involves security cooperation through the 1995 bilateral agreement, and the 2008 decision to instal a permanent joint base on the Emirati coast. But Paris is also keen to develop other dimensions for this partnership – such as, for instance, the Sorbonne Abu Dhabi and the Louvre Abu Dhabi projects.
For these reasons, the possible sale of two nuclear reactors to the UAE might be the exception rather than the norm in France's atomic diplomacy. Bruno Tertrais is senior research fellow at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique in Paris
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Bruno Tertrais : In the past two years France has become the champion of nuclear sales to Middle Eastern countries and the prime driver of France's atomic diplomacy is political.
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