Environmentally, we are confronted with the dilemma - typical of such issues - of short vs. long term. Despite the uncertainties surrounding available data, underground nuclear testing seems to have little short-term impact on the environment around the testing sites, be it the atmosphere or the sea. In Mururoa the concentration of radioactive isotopes of Strontium and Caesium is lower than in Europe. Not so for Plutonium; but this appears to be due to above-ground nuclear testing the French carried out there up to 1974. Over the long-term, though, no one can rule out the possibility of radioactive leakage from the testing sites, as a result of a sudden fracture in the atoll's geological structure. Thus, one marginal test might end up being the classic straw that broke the camel's back. Which will hopefully induce the French to reconsider the rest of their program: some of the coming explosions are expected to yield about 150 kilotons, or seven times more than the one which took place on September 5.
The European Union, including its executive (of which I am a member), had no say in the French decision to resume nuclear testing. This is rather frustrating. Articles 34 and 35 in the Euratom Treaty require Member States, where "particularly dangerous experiments" are involved, to consult the European Commission and provide the right of access to the "monitoring facilities" to verify "their operation and efficiency". Apparently, the French authorities did not consider their nuclear tests to be "particularly dangerous". But they would have been well advised to follow the consultation procedure envisaged in the treaty, if only for political reasons. On Wednesday the Commission reaffirmed its right to be informed and to have access to the testing site, and called on the French government to comply before the next test.
Against this background, one is tempted to read Mr Juppé's offer to extend to the rest of Europe the French nuclear deterrent as a mere attempt at deflecting the avalanche of protests - especially those from within the EU itself. However, since anything which contributes to the discussion on the Union's common foreign and security policy is welcome, we had better take what the French government has said seriously. A major problem I have with the French offer is that it stays within the logic of a purely intergovernmental approach. When this logic is applied to nuclear deterrence, the impression of déjà-vu is overwhelming.
The Europeanization of the French (or, for that matter, the British) national nuclear deterrent should not be put on the agenda before having agreed on a single army and a single foreign and military policy-making structure. In other words: not before the advent of a federal Europe. Doing otherwise amounts to putting the cart before the horse. Do we really want to resume the semi-theological debates on the Multilateral Force which raged in the sixties between the United States and its European NATO allies? Do we really like the idea of setting up a mini Nuclear Planning Group to discuss such relics from the past as the dual-key, the nuclear threshold, or nuclear targeting? (by the way: on which targets these Franco-European weapons are supposed to be assigned?) All idle talk, for as long as the intergovernmental approach prevails - as is perforce the case between the United States and its fifteen NATO allies - only the government which possesses the weapons can ultimately decide if, when, and agains
t whom they are to be used.
On the other hand, the time has come to raise candid questions about the role of nuclear weapons in today's world. What is their purpose and what are the advantages of possessing them? Have they been of any use in solving the worst crisis Europe has known since the end of World War II, namely the war in former Yugoslavia? Do they help solve Russia's problems, both domestic and external, or do they make things more difficult? Are the Americans (who have them) any stronger vis-à-vis the Japanese (who do not have them) in the serious disputes which often oppose them on trade? Have they helped Israel find a solution to the Palestinian problem? At the end of the day, the only plausible reason for possessing nuclear weapons is to deter others from using them. Logically, we are in a loop: nuclear weapons exist because nuclear weapons exist.
I hope the European Union will eventually do without nuclear deterrence. How? By the same procedure its Member States went through when they renounced other weapons of mass destruction: by negotiating a global treaty on the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. The road to it may appear long, even longer than the one we embarked upon to build Europe. But, with the end of the cold war, embark on it we did. If France and the other nuclear powers make good on their pledges to arrive at a comprehensive nuclear test ban by the end of 1996, we would then have walked a further stretch.
Emma Bonino
Member of the European Commission
