The debate about Uranium enrichment and weapons-grade uranium

Organised by the Intergroup on Peace Initiatives with the support of the GUE/NGL

Speaker: Felicity Hill (Greenpeace International, Political Adviser on Nuclear and Disarmament Issues)

Chair: MEP Tobias Pflüger (Co-President of the Intergroup on Peace Initiatives)

Time: 18:45 - 20:00

Date: Tuesday 25.04.2006

Room: A 5G-3

Languages: English, German

In remembrance of the catastrophe in Chernobyl which took place twenty years ago in the night from the 25th to the 26th of April 1986; we would like to initiate a debate about the "civil" use of nuclear energy and the uranium enrichment facilities.

While Iran is criticised for advancing its uranium enrichment program: the International Atomic Energy Agency "has not seen any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices," and was not "in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran".

Now the UN Security Council is calling upon the Iranian government to suspend all uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities in an effort to guarantee that its nuclear programme is for exclusively peaceful purposes. The fact is that the demand for suspension of activities doesn't comply with the NPT. And while uranium enrichment should be forbidden for the Iran, the EU3 - Great Britain, France and Germany have facilities for extensive uranium enrichment and for the production for weapons-grade uranium.