New Delhi
26 November 2007
The European Union (EU) is an association of sovereign states and
its member-states therefore are not likely to act collectively if the Nuclear Suppliers
Group (NSG) is asked to consider the proposed India-United States civil nuclear
cooperation agreement, head of Delegation of the European Commission in India Daniele
Smadja indicated.
"The EU as a whole understands India's interests and rapidly increasing energy needs
[but at the same time] EU is committed to the international nonproliferation regime," Ms
Smadja said on Monday. "The EU is following with great interest the discussion between
India and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) but EU as a whole has not
decided on a common position in the NSG," she told a reporter who wanted to know
whether the EU has a position on NSG waiver for India.
The EU response comes at a time when New Delhi is not certain how the negotiations
with the IAEA on the separation plan will pan out. New Delhi, which deferred a more
favourable agreement with Russia preferring the constraints of the Hyde Act, is worried
that having set a precedence of walking away from terms favourable to India as against
terms favourable to the US, can it be assured that same convoluted logic will not be
brought to bear on the safeguards negotiations to make them conform to the US
demands at the expense of preserving India's future requirement.
All the 27 EU member-states are members of the NSG. The European Commission
participates as an observer. Germany will succeed South Africa as the NSG chair country
next year. New Delhi expects an unconditional and clean exemption from the 45-member
NSG so that it can procure nuclear fuel and technology from multiple sources. India has
to negotiate a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
before the NSG can give the waiver.
Ambassador of Portugal to India Luis Filipe Castro Mendes, in turn, said that his country
will wait for "work inside [the] IAEA" to finish before firming up its position on the India-
US nuclear deal. "We are very attentive and following closely the evolution of the
negotiations between India and the IAEA," he said in response to another question.
The Portuguese envoy, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU,
acknowledged that the EU seeks a common position on some of the "very difficult and
hard questions", like Kosovo, and he did not rule out the possibility of the EU trying to
reach "maximum consensus" on the India-US nuclear deal.
Mr Mendes explained that energy and climate change are very important issues for the
EU and it is working on the possibility of reaching a common position on "rational" use
of energy. Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates and European Commission
President Jose Manuel Barroso will pay an official visit to New Delhi for the eighth EU-
India Summit on November 30.
No comments:
Post a Comment