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 08 August 2007
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Franco British Nuclear Forum

The Franco-British Nuclear Forum was announced following the Prime Minister's meeting with President Chirac in June 2006. The announcement said that: "We have agreed to explore and further develop the opportunities of working together in the civil nuclear field. To that end we have agreed to establish a regular Franco-British Nuclear Forum, involving representatives from government, industry and technical experts. The Forum will provide a vehicle to discuss Franco-British nuclear cooperation, including research, skills, decommissioning and waste management".

The aims of the Forum are: to develop further existing relationships between French and British policy makers, regulators, industry and scientists; to develop collaboration on existing and new areas of mutual interest; and to draw more value from work being done in France and the UK both separately and collaboratively.

There have been two meetings of the Forum to date, the first was held in Paris on 29 November 2006, and the second was held in London on 29 March 2007.  Both were co-chaired by Lord Truscott, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry and Francois Loos, French Industry Minister with responsibility for Energy.

The meetings focused on three broad areas using the framework of working groups:
  • " Workshop No 1 on Political Environment, looking at the regulation of safety and security, legal framework and other issues that provide for public acceptance of nuclear activity;
  • " Workshop 2 on Skills including benchmarking existing skills and engagement with the supply chain;
  • " Workshop 3 on the Economic Environment, including the question of the comparative competitiveness of the nuclear energy and the long term costs of nuclear power.

The London event in March assessed the outputs of the working groups since November and identified further work on Franco-British nuclear co-operation.  The number and frequency of subsequent events is still to be agreed.

The Forum website (see 'External Links'), hosted by the Nuclear Industry Association, contains presentations from the first meeting and some details of the current work of the working groups.  Work is ongoing to update the site with presentations made at the event in London in March.

Forum membership is made up from Industry, policy makers, regulators and scientists.  The following organisations are represented:

Department of Trade and Industry
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Commission on Radioactive Waste Management
Scottish Executive
University of the Highlands and Islands
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Her Majesty's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (HSE)
Environment Agency
Office of Civil Nuclear Security
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
Enrichment Technology Ltd
British Nuclear Group
British Energy
Urenco Group
Nuclear Industry Association
Cogent SSC
Deloitte
UKAEA
Ernst and Young
Morgan Stanley
British Nuclear Energy Society
Dalton Nuclear Institute (University of Manchester)
SERCO
AMEC NCC
Nexia Solutions

French counterparts are drawn from similar organisations.

© Crown copyright 2007