Between Industrial and Energy Policy : The Issue of European Capacity in Uranium Enrichment, 1969-1974

The essay deals with competing Anglo-German-Dutch and French initiatives for an EEC strategy in uranium enrichment. In a time of growing tensions in the world oil market and of increasing uncertainties regarding U.S. fuel services to the expanding European nuclear power generating stations, the issue of creating an indigenous, commercially viable uranium enrichment capacity cut across energy and industrial policy, i.e. an area of supposed 're-launch' for the enlarged European Community. The essay explains how competing technologies (i.e. gaseous diffusion and centrifuge) fuelled political rivalries inside the EEC detrimental to an eventual coordinated European approach.