244 



Since both the NEA and Euratom were created to foster commercial 

 use of nuclear energy in Europe, and since the membership of NEA 

 represented until recently a larger potential market for the U.S. nu- 

 clear power industry than the six Euiatom members, it seems curious 

 that U.S. support to Euratom has so exceeded that for NEA. For the 

 latter there are no joint undertakings with U.S. funding. One signif- 

 icant difference between the two multinational organizations may 

 explain the difference in U.S. suppoit. This, in the opinion of the 

 writer, was the presence of the United Kingdom in NEA but not in 

 Euratom. During the mid-1950s the U.S. nuclear industry was con- 

 cerned that the United Kingdom with its strongly backed government 

 program for development and application of nuclear power would be 

 able to capture much of the world's nuclear power market. For the 

 United States to have funded NEA projects may well have seemed to 

 give a principal competitor in the international nuclear market still 

 greater advantage. In these circumstances, U.S. suppoit could not 

 appear to benefit nuclear power research and development of interest 

 to the United Kingdom. 



Conclusions and Current Issues 



The comparative freedom from crises of the OECD's Nuclear 

 Energy Agency provides a marked contrast to the trials and difficulties 

 of Euratom. What accounts for this difference? It may well be that 

 the fundamental differences between the organiaztions provide an 

 answer. NEA appears as the traditional kind of international under- 

 taking, being more of a confederation of member states than a separate, 

 supernational organization. Perhaps relations with the NEA have been 

 easier in that the Agency is clearly a working tool of the members 

 rather than a form of international government. Perhaps, also, less was 

 expected of the NEA. For example, its charter was not to create a 

 European nuclear industry but rather to help with technical assistance. 

 Whatever the reasons, the history of the NEA has shown more co- 

 operation and less friction among participating members than was 

 the case with Euratom. Future planners of international technological 

 ventures may benefit from an identification and analysis of the factors 

 that have caused this difference. 



The relations between the United States and the NEA on one hand 

 and the United States and Euratom on the other are also different. The 

 United States cooperated substantially with Euiatom in an ambitious 

 joint research program, but has preferred a more conventional role in 

 its relations to the NEA, limiting its participation largely to exchange 

 of information about projects of mutual interest. That the United 

 Kingdom was a member of NEA but not of Euratom may have been a 

 factor in the difference in U.S. participation. In the formative period 

 of the NEA, the United States was concerned with nuclear competi- 

 tion from the United Kingdom, which had begun a large-scale deploy- 

 ment of nuclear power well before the United States and appeared to 

 be a formidable future competitor in the world nuclear market. U.S. 

 financial support to NEA could have been seen as fostering a competi- 

 tive British nuclear technology, while U.S. finaneial support to Eura- 

 tom enjoyed the advantage of being earmarked for projects explicitly 

 beneficial to U.S. nuclear technology. 



With the United Kingdom and other European nations now joining 

 the Common Market, the membership of NEA and Euratom will 

 further overlap. In turn, this raises the question about the separate 



