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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.
The first meeting was held in Paris on 29 November. It was co-chaired by Francois Loos, French Industry Minister with responsibility for Energy and Lord Truscott, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry. The Forum 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.
A follow-up meeting was held in London in Spring 2007 to assess the outputs of the working groups and to identify further work on Franco-British nuclear co-operation.
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
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
AMEC Nuclear
British Energy
British Nuclear Energy Society
British Nuclear Group
Cogent SSC
Committee on Radioactive Waste Management
Dalton Nuclear Institute (University of Manchester)
Deloitte
Enrichment Technology Ltd
Environment Agency
Ernst and Young
Her Majesty’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (HSE)
Herbert Smith
International Nuclear Services
Lloyds Register
Morgan Stanley
Nexia Solutions
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
Nuclear Industry Association
Office of Civil Nuclear Security
Scottish Executive
SERCO
UKAEA
University of the Highlands and Islands
Urenco Group
Westinghouse
French counterparts are drawn from similar organisations.
The NIA plays an active part in the forum and hosts the UK documents on these web pages on behalf of the forum.
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