WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1639/97 by Undine-Uta BLOCH von BLOTTNITZ to the Commission. Continuous enrichment monitoring
C 45/68 EN Official Journal of the European Communities 10. 2. 98 Answer given by Mr Papoutsis on behalf of the Commission (3 July 1997) The text of the energy charter treaty signed on 17 December 1994 in Lisbon was published in the Official 1. journal (1). In 1995 the German version was linguistically improved in order to comply with the linguistic usage of the different German speaking countries. These modifications are stylistic only and do not concern the substance of the treaty. The final German version of the treaty, which is at the basis of the German ratification procedure, was published in Germany in 1996. 2. The linguistically improved German version has up to now not been published again in the Official journal. 3. The conclusion of the energy charter treaty by the Communities will be based on the present authentic language versions. Republication in the Official journal of the full text, including modifictions, of the energy charter treaty and related acts, is under consideration. The Commission is not aware that the same problem has come up in other official languages of the 4. Communities. 5. The Commission takes the view that the present authentic language versions are consistent. (1) OJ L 380, 31. 12. 1994. (98/C 45/82) WRITTEN QUESTION E-1639/97 by Undine-Uta Bloch von Blottnitz (V) to the Commission (14 May 1997) Subject: Continuous enrichment monitoring One way in which fissile materials can be monitored is continuous enrichment monitoring. 1. 2. How does the Commission assess the monitoring options offered by this method? In which European plants is this method used? Answer given by Mr Papoutsis on behalf of the Commission (9 July 1997) One of the objectives of safeguarding enrichment plants is to detect any undeclared high enrichment of 1. uranium. A measure to achieve this goal, the ácontinuous enrichment monitorí (CEMO), was developed by the United Kingdom under the United Kingdom-International atomic energy agency (IAEA) support programme and installed in the centrifuge enrichment plant at Capenhurst, United Kingdom. The views of Euratom on the technical methodology have been given in reply to the oral question H-370/97 of Mr Smith during the plenary session of the Parliament, on 13 May 1997. Certain problems have been identified which are still under evaluation. Therefore, Euratom prefers to continue its testing in Capenhurst in order to gain more experience. In parallel, Euratom is investigating (together with the IAEA) other new approaches (high performance trace analyses or environmental sampling) to arrive at an optimal solution. 2. For the reasons stated above, at present CEMO is tested only in one installation, at Capenhurst