PARIS - France hailed its achievements in nuclear energy while Britain basked in European Union approval for its green policies on Wednesday, as the two nations inaugurated regular talks on nuclear power.
The Paris talks brought together power firms including EDF, the world's largest single nuclear energy producer, and British Energy, whose output has been hit by boiler cracks at two power stations.
France relies on nuclear energy for 80 percent of its electricity while Britain, where the figure is 20 percent, is struggling to persuade voters to embrace a new wave of nuclear power plant construction amid fears over safety.
French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed at a summit in June to set up a Franco-British Nuclear Forum to help combat high oil prices and carbon emissions which are blamed for global warming.
Overshadowing speeches and lunch at the French finance ministry was a sweeping criticism from Brussels of plans by several EU countries to curb emissions between 2008 and 2010.
Only Britain had its emissions targets backed by the European Commission, while France escaped criticism by negotiating an extra 2 weeks to come up with revised proposals.
"For the UK, we want to see a further strengthening of the EU ... scheme and we are quite happy to have tough allocations to ensure a level playing field across Europe," Lord Truscott, a junior British trade minister, told a news conference.
Truscott's remarks appeared at odds with French nervousness over the way the EU sets emissions targets for countries participating in its carbon trading scheme, the backbone of EU efforts to cut so-called greenhouse gas emissions.
"We would rather not work on the basis of a global figure but industry by industry or even product by product," Loos told the same news conference during a break in the energy talks.
Over 100 nuclear experts from both sides of the Channel listened to speeches from ministers, regulators and producers but few concrete new proposals were expected from the first in what is due to become a "semi-permanent" bilateral forum.
"Energy demand will increase by 60 percent by 2030. It will need thousands of billions of euros of investment (worldwide)," Loos told the forum, adding emissions also posed a threat.
"We need to invest in other forms of energy besides fossil fuels to supply our energy needs. We know nuclear energy is the response to these challenges," Loos said.
Blair, who is pushing for accelerated efforts to fight global warming, is reported to be leaning towards a potentially controversial decision to resume building nuclear power plants.
"Public opinion is clearly an important issue in the UK and it was made clear in our energy review that it is important to engage the public," Truscott told the news conference.
"Clearly there is a case which the government has to make for nuclear power. We are looking at climate change and security of energy supply. Those issues are not going to go away."
Story by Tim Hepher and Nathalie Meistermann
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
