329 



The Members of the JET Joint Undertaking are represented by the JET Council, which is responsible for 

 establishing the JET programme and for supervising its execution. It is the JET Council which nominates the 

 Director and senior staff of the Project and which approves the annual budget, as well as the Project Develop- 

 ment Plan and Project Cost Estimates. The JET Council is assisted by the JET Executive Committee, which 

 in particiilar approves, in accordance with the rules estabUshed by the JET Council, the awarding of contracts, 

 and by the JET Scientific Council, which advises on scientific and technical matters. The JET Director is the 

 legal representative of the Joint Undertaking. 



The voting balance in the JET Council has been structured (see Fig. 4) so that the delegations from Euratom 

 and the four large countries— France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom— require the support of at least 

 one other delegation for a decision. The voting rights are: 



5 votes each: Euratom, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom; 



2 votes each: Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland — countries in which establishments 

 have Contracts of Association with Euratom; 



1 vote each: Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg — countries which have no Contract of 

 Association with Euratom. 

 In total, therefore, there are 38 votes, of which 26 are required for a decision. 



JET as an Experiment in Project Organisation 



Although the JET Joint Undertaking is a separate legal entity, it has no permanency. It is a single project, 

 not an institution. The Undertaking has a finite life. It began in June 1978 and will terminate at the beginning 

 of the 1990s when the experimental programme on the machine comes to an end. 



The organisation of JET will stand as i model for future international research projects, if it can succeed in 

 demonstrating its aim that such a project can be set up, run and closed without any serious long term obliga- 

 tions, particularly social ones. To this end, the Undertaking is not an employer. Staff are seconded to JET 

 either directly by the UKAEA or by the other Members via temporary contracts of employment with Euratom. 

 With the Undertaking set up in this way, it will have no social obligation to staff at its termination. 



The JET Paradox 



In the early days of the Project, many commentators claimed that some of its characteristics would make it 



ineffective and perhaps even uimianageable. For example: 



• How could a physics project with all its scientific uncertainties operate successfully and productively within 

 the framework of an international treaty organisation? 



• How could a project be harmoniously managed when staff working alongside each other from the two 

 employers— Euratom and the UKAEA— have salaries that differ by a substantial factor? 



• How could a team drawn from twelve nationalities and nearly as mjmy mother tongues be managed 

 efficiently? 



• How could a temporary project hope to attract staff of a sufficient calibre and retain them particularly 

 once the project is more than half-over? 



• How could a project whose costs are in various currencies manage its financial affairs if its budgets are 

 decided in ECU, until recently a currency of only notional value? 



Apart from such questions on the organisation and finances of JET, there were also questions about the 

 ambitious nature of the machine itself. The jump in scale and power over previous machines was considered 

 too ambitious by some. These questions are now all answered. 



