The UK’s withdrawal from the Euratom treaty should not fetter the ability of the UK’s nuclear industry to co-operate on a cross-border basis, a heavyweight committee of MPs has told the government.
In a report, published today (4 April), the House of Commons Exiting the European Union select committee, recommends that the government “needs to be clear what kind of relationship it wishes to pursue with Euratom” once the UK has departed from the EU.
The committee highlights the importance of continued international co-operation on nuclear issues, post-Brexit.
“It is important that whatever the relationship is, it does not reduce the ability of the UK to pursue international cooperation in the civil nuclear industry and collaborative research in the future, including Horizon 2020 and its successor,” the report states.
The risks of a rushed exit from the Euratom arrangements are flagged up in a report by Dutch MPs, which is cited by the select committee.
The recently published report by the standing committee on European Affairs in the Dutch Parliament says that future of the UK’s Euratom arrangements can and should be kept separate from the wider EU withdrawal negotiations.
The committee rejects the UK government’s case that it needs to leave Euratom in order to make a clean break with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
It has arrived at this conclusion on the basis that Euratom and the EU are legally separate because both memberships are regulated by different treaties
As a result, the MPs conclude there is “no legal need to extend the sphere of action of the Article 50 procedure to include the Euratom treaty”.
The Dutch MPs describe the risk of the UK leaving Euratom two years from now, which is the deadline for the completion of the Article 50 negotiation process, without replacement arrangements in place as a “highly undesirable situation”, given the “potential security risks”.
“Any potential withdrawal from the Euratom treaty should be kept separate from EU exit negotiations.
“If the UK wishes to leave Euratom, a separate procedure should be agreed for this purpose, so that such negotiations can be conducted with due care, rather than under time pressure. “