§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will make a statement on the outcome of the European Community Research Council on 10 March.
§ Mr. MacGregorThe Research Council met on 10 March 1983. I represented Her Majesty's Government.
Discussion at the Council centred on proposals by the Commission for a new programme of work at the Community's joint research centre—JRC—as an alternative to the programme already submitted by the Commission for the period 1984–87.
433WThe Research Council meeting on 8 February this year had requested new proposals from the Commission, in the light of the serious doubts harboured by a number of member states, including the United Kingdom, about the key element in the JRC schedule, the Super-Sara test programme—SSTP—which was designed to assess the consequences of a simulated accident in a light water reactor, and which is located at the JRC's Ispra, Italy, establishment. The validity of these doubts had been confirmed by a team of three eminent European nuclear scientists, professors Birkhofer (Germany), Holm (Denmark), and Teillac (France), who had investigated the SSTP in December 1982.
On 10 March, the Research Council agreed that the Commission's alternative proposals, which excluded SSTP, provided a satisfactory basis for a programme of work at Ispra which would ensure its continuing role as one of the Community's JRC research establishments. Final decisions on each part of the new programme will await further detailed proposals from the Commission, but it is clear that nuclear safety will remain the most significant element of the JRC's work. In the light of this, the Council took the decision to terminate the SSTP.