You probably went looking all over the site for Part 1. It’s not on this blog. It’s on the Women In Theatre blog.
European Nuclear Cities Initiative
(ENCI)
Preamble
A key-element in the military nuclear complex of the former Soviet Union has been the creation of 10 cities, closed to the external world, fully dedicated to the various stages of the building of nuclear weapons. These nuclear cities, with an aggregated population of over 700,000 people, still host a body of scientists and technicians of high skill and professionality. As a consequence of the process of downsizing that necessarily involves (and will involve) the Russian nuclear cities, many of these scientists and technicians need to find job-alternatives. Otherwise they may, in the long run, constitute a serious source of proliferation concern. Many initiatives have been taken to address the problems discussed so far. Unfortunately, it is unrealistic to expect that these problems will take care of themselves after a while. Letting time go by, is not a solution. The task of addressing the problems pertaining to the complex of the former Soviet Union, will demand international cooperation for many years to come and at a level that should be much higher than the present one.
Up to now we have seen a constructive cooperation between many countries of the industrialized world and the countries of the former Soviet Union, as in the ISTC and in the TACIS, and specifically we have seen the whole array of US-Russian cooperation initiatives, projects and agreements (Cooperative Threat Reductions, Material Protection and Accounting Program, Nuclear Cities Initiative, lab to lab cooperation, Purchase of Fissile material, etc.).
The task of securing a smooth economic transition and of reducing the proliferation risks of the Russian nuclear cities is of paramount importance and demands prompt attention and, probably, a better effort than the present one. The specific problem of nuclear cities and their economic conversion has been addressed, up to now, in the framework of US-Russian cooperation, by the “Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI)”.
This can be an area in which European countries could contribute and do more for the nuclear problems of the former Soviet Union and, simultaneously, do more for international security.
Draft Project
The idea here is to promote a “European Nuclear Cities Initiative (ENCI)” project that could complement the US-Russian NCI.
The ENCI could consist of a general framework for European-Russian cooperation initiatives to be carried on at various levels, e.g. Government to Government, Agency to Agency, Lab to Lab, Region to Region, without ruling out a possible direct cooperation between Russia and the European Union.
Coordination with the US-NCI should be obviously guaranteed. The ENCI should aim at fostering non-proliferation, environmental clean-up and economic conversion. The primary reference of ENCI should be the scientists and technicians of the nuclear cities. The proposal of an ENCI is perfectly consistent with the “Common Strategy of the European Union on Russia” adopted in Cologne, Germany, last 4 June 1999.
The cooperation between European Government and Institutions, on one side, and Russian Government and Institutions and the Nuclear Cities could be focused on topics like:
- Advanced energy technologies and energy efficiency
- Monitoring of environmental pollution and environmental clean up
- Controlling radioactive waste
- Fostering commercial enterprises in those scientific-technological fields that are familiar to the scientists of the nuclear cities
- Creation of analytic and modelling computing centres in the cities
The nuclear cities that could be involved in the ENCI program could be, at least at the beginning, Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk-70) and Sarov (Arzamas-16).
Forum
Under the auspices and with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs the Landau Network-Centro Volta (an Italian NGO that, among other goals, promotes cooperation with scientists of the former Soviet Union) - gathering the indications coming from a preliminary meeting on ENCI at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome among Russian, American and Italian experts - will organize, with the scientific/technological collaboration of ENEA, an international Forum in Rome, at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ structure Istituto Diplomatico “Mario Toscano” (Villa Madama), on December 13-14, 1999. The Forum will be aimed at defining and promoting the ENCI program. A preliminary draft agenda includes the following arguments: creation of energy efficiency centres and development “in loco” of advanced energy technologies and demonstration facilities; creation of analytic and modelling computing centres; development of environmental activities (including monitoring and mathematical modelling); analysis of financing mechanisms to involve international investments, to favour technological transfer and to start commercialization activities; analysis of the necessary items for the preparation of a joint statement on EU-Russian cooperation to implement the ENCI and discussions of times, modalities and financing procedures to start and develop the ENCI project from the year 2000.
We expect that the Forum will be attended by scientists and staff from the Russian nuclear cities, representatives of Russian Minatom, of the Russian American Nuclear Cities Initiative, experts and officials of the US and of the EU countries, representatives from enterprises associations. The Forum will be informal in the sense that participants will speak on their personal capacities and that participation will not imply any endorsement from the Institution or the Organization to which the participants belong.
The spirit of the Forum is to provide a scheme of action in the frame of ENCI, which should help the International Community in making a leap forward towards addressing the difficult problems of the Russian nuclear legacy.
