actively support, in cooperation with its partners, concrete proposals to bring the production, use and reprocessing of all nuclear fuel under the control of the IAEA, including the creation of an international fuel bank; support in addition other initiatives for the multilateralisation of the nuclear fuel cycle aimed at the peaceful use of nuclear energy, bearing in mind in that regard that Parliament welcomes the readiness of the Council and the Commission to contribute up to EUR 25 million to the creation of a nuclear fuel bank under the control of the IAEA and wishes to see a speedy approval of the Joint Action on this subject;

The Commission considers that nuclear power can contribute to the diversification and the security of the energy supply for a number of reasons, in particular the availability and distribution of nuclear fuel (natural uranium), the limited impact of price variations for this fuel on plant operating costs and the existence of market supervision for nuclear materials for peaceful use.

‘spent fuel’ means nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in and permanently removed from a reactor core; spent fuel may either be considered as usable resource that can be reprocessed or be destined for final disposal with no further use foreseen and treated as radioactive waste.

The Commission is proposing to help establish a high level of nuclear safety in the management of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste in the Member States, in order to protect public health and the environment.

the use of nuclear energy to produce electricity, including nuclear fuel-cycle activities.

Has the Commission already made an assessment and if not, will it undertake an immediate comparative assessment of the details of radioactive effluents and emissions released respectively from the Sellafield nuclear waste and fuel processing plant, operated by BNFL in the UK, and the La Hague nuclear waste and fuel processing plant, operated by COGEMA in France, as published in the Commission Radiation Protection Report 127, Radioactive effluents from nuclear power stations and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants in the European Union, 1995-1999, and the report prepared for the European Parliament's Scientific and Technological Options Assessment Programme ( ...[+++]STOA) on 'Possible Toxic Effects from the Nuclear Reprocessing Plants at Sellafield (UK) and Cap de la Hague (France)', published in December 2001 and November 2001 respectively?