TL: GERMANY, PLUTONIUM & PROLIFERATION - THE UNSTATED THREAT - SO: Dr. Matthias Kntzel, Greenpeace International & Transnational Institute (GP) DT: Amsterdam, January 1995 The author of this paper, Dr. Matthias Kntzel, is a political consultant and journalist, based in Hamburg, and a former senior advisor on nuclear energy and nuclear weapons of the German Green Party Fraktion in the Bundestag, the Federal Parliament of Germany. He is the author of the book Bonn and the Bomb - German Politics and the Nuclear Option (TNI/Pluto Press, London 1994), and he has (co-)authored several other books. Greenpeace International Transnational Institute (TNI) Keizersgracht 176 Paulus Potterstraat 20 1016 DW Amsterdam 1071 DA Amsterdam Phone (31) 20 5236222 Phone (31) 206626608 Fax (31) 20 5236500 Fax (31) 20 6757176 *** "It is time to discuss why six gramme of plutonium from Russia strike the Germans with panic while at the same time they think they have to produce three tons of plutonium every year." Sharon Tanzer, Vice President of the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) in Washington. Quoted in the German weekly "Der Spiegel", December 12, 1994. *** "It must be seen that while German renunciation of nuclear weapons has certainly been expressed without conditions, it cannot be meant to be unconditional." Professor Karl Kaiser and Professor Erwin Hckel, the leading non-proliferation experts of the semi-official German Society for Foreign Policy ["Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Auswrtige Politik"]. In J. Krause (ed.), Kernwaffenverbreitung und internationaler Systemwandel, Baden-Baden, 1994, p.258. *** "Germany must be provided with a credible nuclear deterrent, on the one hand to protect it from any possible Russian nuclear coercion and on the other hand to avoid its being compelled to develop its own nuclear deterrent." Assembly of Western European Union (WEU) Report on "The Role and Future of Nuclear Weapons" (Document 1420), p.29. INTRODUCTION Nuclear proliferation is an issue likely to have a higher profile during 1995 than ever before. In the post-Cold War world, it is hailed as one of the emerging threats to global security. In April this year a decision is due to be made on the future of the NPT or Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The predominant view in the industrialised world is that the proliferation threat comes from countries in the South, and it is the NPT which contains this threat. Consequently, the NPT must be extended - in its existing form indefinitely. Anything else, this view goes, will lead to greater proliferation. But the real history of the NPT and nuclear proliferation tells a different story, and leads to a very different conclusion as to the worth of the Treaty. In an attempt to broaden the debate over proliferation, this paper summarises the role played by Germany. A country generally considered not a proliferation threat, and yet it has played a very distinct role in undermining effective nuclear non- proliferation. Although the country's nuclear industry has come under international scrutiny for its poor record in nuclear technology proliferation, its political establishment has tended to remain unblemished. However, Germany played a key role in weakening the instruments of the NPT during the drafting of the Treaty almost 30 years ago. In addition, along with Japan, successive German governments have defended the right of non- nuclear weapons states to acquire large stockpiles of weapons- usable plutonium. It is highly topical at this time to highlight the historical and contempory role played by Germany in non-proliferation affairs. For in addition to a decision on the future of the NPT due in 1995, three other issues with major international implications are in the process of negotiation. Firstly, Germany is currently playing a lead role in the renegotiation of the US-EURATOM Agreement, which expires at the end of 1995. Along with the UK and France, Germany is resisting all efforts by the US to exercise its legitimate control over European nuclear activities. This should not be surprising as Germany was instrumental during the 1950's in establishing EURATOM, as a way of excluding US and international safeguards concerning its nuclear activities. Secondly, the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva during 1995 will probably begin negotiations for a halt or cut-off in fissile materials production - including plutonium. While it is understood that Germany is leading the call for international control over plutonium within the arsenals of the nuclear weapons states, it will not volunteer for international control over its own plutonium stockpile. Efforts to extend the cut-off to include all fissile material have been rejected by Germany. And finally, as part of the move towards European defence and foreign policy harmonization due to be agreed in 1996, a debate has already begun over the integration of nuclear weapons into a common EU defence policy. The issue of a European nuclear force, specifically allowed for within the NPT during its drafting in the 1960's - at the insistence of Germany - has already been quietly resurrected. This essay is written by Dr. Matthias Kntzel, the author of the book "Bonn and the Bomb - German Politics and the Nuclear Option" (Pluto Press London & TNI), published for the first time in English in December 1994. TNI and Greenpeace International share the author's objective: to balance out the proliferation debate and to confront its realities. A reality that sees a growing threat from the North and not just from the South. Amsterdam, January 1995 Shaun Burnie, Greenpeace International Huub Jaspers, Transnational Institute PLUTONIUM - THE LEGAL POSITION Does the renunciation of nuclear weapons at the same time mean a renunciation of the nuclear option? When listening to voices in Bonn you would be tempted to answer this question with a definite yes - but when looking behind the scenes a completely different picture unfolds. The Federal Republic of Germany ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) some twenty years ago but it has always###kept open the door leading to its own nuclear weapons. The NPT is not a guarantee against "horizontal proliferation" - Iraq is a NPT signatory! The NPT is a highly precarious compromise containing loopholes through which tons of plutonium pass. West Germany has always played a central role in the years of negotiations on this treaty. At the beginning of the 1960's the Soviet Union and the USA tried to curtail West Germany's nuclear options. It was, therefore, hardly surprising that the German Government (under Adenauer and Erhard) first tried to hinder the NPT project and, in a later phase (under Kiesinger and Brandt) tried to shape the NPT according the country's own interests.[1] The controversy over the NPT was the prototype of a conflict which was woven into the fabric of NATO right from its very beginnings up to the present time: on the one hand, the endeavours by the victorious Second World War powers to prevent an equal i.e. nuclear status for Germany; on the other hand, Germany's efforts to minimize the differences in its nuclear status with respect to France and Great Britain. These efforts not only left definite traces in the text of the Treaty, they also led to a series of special provisions within the Treaty, without which Germany would not have signed. These special conditions were so far-reaching that it may be said that East Germany signed a Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 which was different from the Treaty signed by West Germany a year later. The West German version of the Treaty, however, is today binding for the united Germany. The extent to which Germany renounces nuclear weapons is specified by the following three NPT supplementary documents: (1) NATO's interpretation of the NPT, which guarantees the continuance of nuclear sharing between the members of NATO. This is by no means self-evident. Although the NPT aims at preventing nuclear war as well as the creation of other nuclear powers, the nuclear powers within NATO actually train and prepare for the use of nuclear weapons by "non-nuclear weapons states", and this at a short notice. Additional statements made by the major powers within NATO indicate that Germany could legally opt out of the Treaty should NATO be dissolved. (2) The German interpretation of the NPT as decided upon by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-led Government under Chancellor Kiesinger in mid-1969, which was taken up "lock, stock and barrel" when the Social Democratic Party (SPD)-led Government under Willy Brandt came into power at the end of 1969. Here the development of nuclear weapon technologies is declared as being in conformity with the Treaty. It is stated, for example, that Germany is not excluded from any "development in nuclear research", and that the NPT also "must not prevent advances in the area of developing and using technologies for the peaceful use of nuclear explosive devices". (3) The statement by the West German Government upon the ratification of the Treaty in 1975, according to which "no provision in the Treaty can be set out in such a way as to hinder further development of European unity, in particular the creation of a European Union with appropriate powers."[2] The magazine "Europische Sicherheit" [European Security], which is closely associated with the German armed forces underlined the importance of this statement in 1993, saying that the German Government had left the way open to becoming a European nuclear power. "An example of this policy is the 'European Option', that is, the idea that German renunciation of ABC (Atomic, Biological and Chemical) weapons would become legally null and void given a joint European defence. It was with this idea in mind that the SPD/FDP coalition signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1969 on condition that it would not stand in the way of the process of European unity. The European Option found its way into the Two-plus-Four Agreement [on the German unification - ed. note] in the autumn of 1990. The Chancellor's delegation declared an unconditional renunciation of ABC weapons vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. However, in several talks this was shifted around by the German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, into becoming an 'affirmation' of the declarations of renunciation made earlier. Genscher's formulation was written into the Two-plus-Four Agreement. The earlier decl arations of renunciation now apply with the European proviso, however."[3] Within the German political elite, nuclear power-sharing and the European Option are considered as self-evident matters. The dangers for non-proliferation in this approach to the Treaty become apparent when applied to other countries. It is obvious how Western opinion would react to news that China wanted to deliver nuclear warheads to countries in the Islamic world and would train the armed forces in these countries in the use of nuclear weapons. Similarly, what would happen if Japan declared it was developing an "Asian Option" together with Korea, China and Taiwan, as a goal in its foreign policy, and would renounce nuclear weapons only with this proviso? It goes without saying that the completely different approaches within the NPT will most certainly never be accepted by the Non-Aligned signatories of the Treaty.[4] To reiterate, German renunciation of nuclear weapons never included the renunciation of a nuclear option for Germany. By not relinquishing the option of being a nuclear power, however, and in fact defending such a status, Germany has no credibility when it recommends to others that they abstain from becoming such a power. PLUTONIUM - THE MATERIAL POSITION The Rand Corporation recently suggested that for countries like Japan and Germany, "US policymakers would do well to think of these allies as 'virtual' nuclear powers."[5] Japan and Germany are indeed the only two countries which are not nuclear weapons states and have thousands of kilogrammes of plutonium at their disposal. The central status symbol in German nuclear diplomacy is the national plutonium bunker at Hanau which, according to the Government, contains at least 2,500 kg of plutonium - the largest stockpile of plutonium in the world as far as non-nuclear weapons states are concerned. There are good reasons to assume that the State bunker at Hanau contains not only (weapons-usable) plutonium from reactors but also highly-enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium in metallic form - produced at the so-called "multi-purpose research reactor" in Karlsruhe and separated at the national "Karlsruhe reprocessing plant" - though this is not certain. It would be an understatement, to say details concerning the Hanau stockpile are difficult to obtain. Except for a few bits of general information, nothing is disclosed by the German Government about its own weapons-grade material. In April 1994, for example, all information "on the kind and amount of nuclear fuel in state custody" was classified as "secret" (Bundestags-Drucksache [parliamentary papers] 12/7472), and no replies at all were made to parliamentary questions related to this matter. Another 6,600 kg of reprocessed German plutonium are deposited in France. The total amount of plutonium German companies have commissioned for reprocessing in France and Britain comes to a spectacular 76,000 kg.[6] The number of studies refuting the economic and/or ecological motives for the plutonium industry are legion. The original strategic motive, on the other hand, is still on the agenda - what today is a civilian plutonium stockpile can become a nuclear weapons arsenal tomorrow! "A nation with a store of separated plutonium is a nation with a nuclear option."[7] While the official reason for the plutonium stockpile is to serve as a basis for the mixed-oxide fuel rod (MOX) factory planned for Hanau, the matter is, in fact, exactly the reverse. The assembling of MOX fuel rods containing plutonium is a pre-requisite for the "legal" storage of plutonium, something which, according to the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (and the WEU Supplementary Protocol and the 1958 USA/EURATOM Agreement) may not be practised without proof of further "civilian" use. The Japanese nuclear option is clearly evident today. "For the first time since the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, Japan no longer rules out the possibility of producing its own nuclear weapons", the International Herald Tribune wrote in 1993.[8] Seventy kilogrammes of plutonium held up in the Tokai Mura plant was not the only news to be reported at the beginning of 1994. According to the British Ministry of Defence, Japan was also supposed to have developed detonation mechanisms and carriers for nuclear weapons.[9] This was reported in the London Times in 1994 but was denied with little conviction in Tokyo. Just recently the Japanese Foreign Minister, Kabun Muto, expressly emphasised the advantages of possessing nuclear weapons, when he said in 1993 with reference to North Korea: "If North Korea develops nuclear weapons and that becomes a threat to Japan, first there is the nuclear umbrella of the United States upon which we can rely. But if it comes to the crunch, possessing the will that we can build nuclear weapons is important."[10] Japan's and Germany's histories in nuclear matters have astonishing parallels. In both countries powerful political forces demanded independent nuclear control in the 1960's. There were very strong objections to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and its ratification in both countries. Both countries successfully advocated the relaxation of NPT safeguards. Japan and Germany are the only "have-nots" with large stockpiles of plutonium. Both countries have always raised objections to their plutonium stockpiles being internationalised. Both countries successfully intervened to oppose the Clinton administration's plan for a total ban on the separation of plutonium worldwide. Both countries have refused to tolerate any future US intervention in their plutonium policies - a point we shall come back to. Both countries, legally, are not nuclear powers; nor are they in actual fact non-nuclear powers. They are hermaphrodites -latent nuclear powers. If the German Government wanted to make a contribution to defusing the danger of nuclear proliferation, the urgently needed steps to be taken would be clear from what has been said above, namely: * Renunciation of the nuclear option legally and in material terms. * Voluntary renunciation of the NPT's supplementary clauses. * Renunciation of all separation and use of plutonium and of production and use of highly-enriched uranium. * A stop to the national storage of plutonium at the Hanau State bunker and transferring that storage to an international authority which would assume its rights of ownership and administration. There is a simple reason why such initiatives have not even been considered by the German Government. Bonn - and now Berlin - does not want to reduce its nuclear option, it wants, indeed, to extend it. THE "EUROPEAN OPTION" One priority in European policy now is preparation for the forthcoming 1996 European Union Governments' Conference on Western European defence and the renewal of the Western European Union (WEU) Treaty, due to expire in 1998. What role should be ascribed to French and British nuclear weapons in the "Security Union"? This question is at the centre of a WEU Defence Committee report of May 1994 on "The Role and Future of Nuclear Weapons" in Europe. The WEU report notes an increasing lack of credibility in the US's guarantee on nuclear weapons, and the new topicality thus acquired by the German problem connected to it. "In this framework, Germany must be provided with a credible nuclear deterrent... to avoid its being compelled to develop its own nuclear deterrent," it says in the report. "Purely Franco-British cooperation might be experienced by Germany as a force that had to be counter-balanced, and there would be strong pressure against such cooperation unless the Germans were invited to participate in one way or another".[11] Should Germany really see itself compelled to possess its own nuclear weaponry and to break with the NPT, or just be able to make threats with this possibility? Or are these formulations purely the chimera of isolated Eurocrats, called forth in order to unite Europe in the matter of nuclear weapons? Observation of statements in Germany's media as well as official statements do not suggest any imminent threat from German nuclear aspirations. A somewhat different picture emerges when reading the statements which have been made by the German Government's leading advisors, and which sometimes are not accessible to the public. Evidence in support of this can be found in two statements made in 1994. Which European country without nuclear weapons would be in a position to build up a nuclear weapon arsenal on a par with that of the British or French nuclear powers? Professors Karl Kaiser and Erwin Hckel, the leading non-proliferation experts in the Government-oriented foreign policy institute, the DGAP (Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Auswrtige Politik), asked this question and answered it as follows: "This would require a high level of technological development, a broad industrial base, considerable economic strength, and an extensive military organisation with convertible carrier weapons. Of the non-nuclear weapons countries in Europe, only Germany could meet these requirements within the foreseeable future."[12] "We can do it!" - this is the first part of the message. Whether we do do it - the second link in the chain of argumentation - depends on whether France and Britain are willing and able to operate a policy of hampering proliferation. "Any renunciation of instrumentalising power over nuclear weapons for reasons of power and status acts to inhibit proliferation. In the case of the two Western European nuclear powers this also includes their being prepared for their weapons to function as extensively European." This notion is later repeated in the form of a broad hint when it is said that "Given an end to the East-West conflict, it is hard to conceive of the continued existence of a purely national potential which does not at the same time provide others with a model in encouraging proliferation". This means that the only thing that would inhibit proliferation in Germany's case - and this is the third point in the argument - would be a policy that, in taking its increasing importance into account, wanted to check the difference in nuclear status in Europe. "It would therefore be a contribution to a non-proliferation policy which had an eye to European and world conditions if both [the French and British - ed. note] potentials were joined and fitted into a European structure. This could consist of a European Nuclear Planning Group that defined the options for use, and have a decision-making structure with a European political head. Its political head could retain a national right of veto by France and Britain, analagous to NATO procedure, until it really did take on the character of a confederated or federated body." If Germany's new importance were not taken into account - the fourth point in the argument goes - German renunciation of nuclear weapons would sooner or later be put to question. "It must be seen that while German renunciation of nuclear weapons has certainly been expressed without conditions, it cannot be meant to be unconditional." In other words, Germany would not be guilty of proliferation if nuclear weapons were taken up some day; France and Britain would, because they would have forced German policy through having encouraged proliferation. In this chain of argumentation the terms used are reinterpreted, and their meanings inverted, quite scurrilously. Nuclear powers that do not pass on their weapons are to blame for proliferation, while the transfer or sharing of power over them is redefined as "hampering proliferation". The tendency of the WEU report, according to which Germany requires special treatment in order not to be "compelled" to becoming a nuclear power, finds confirmation here. REORGANISATION OF EURO-AMERICAN DEFENSE ? The second statement comes from Uwe Nerlich. He is the Director of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik [Foundation for Policy and Research], which is financed partly by the Federal Chancellery, and for two decades has been the minence grise in German nuclear policy. His proposal for a plan for the "reorganisation of Euro-American defence" speculates there will be a provisional extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty of just five years. "An important pre-requisite of a functionally viable Euro-Atlantic alliance (and basis for a future non-proliferation regime)", Nerlich writes, "would be to arrive at new forms of consultation with regard to the USA's strategic nuclear weapons potential (if possible with the US combining with the two European nuclear weapons states and the 'most affected' non-nuclear weapons states)".[13] The "new basis" will be achieved in three stages through the "Maastricht II" debate and the renewal of the WEU in 1998. The first stage envisages that by 1995 the "preconditions for an effective, balanced non-proliferation regime be defined and would also designate obligations for nuclear-weapons states. This should make easier a joint defense and would make possible (after another five-year extension) the decision about an unlimited duration of the NPT." Like Kaiser and Hckel, Nerlich ties the "effectiveness" of the non-proliferation regime to the preparedness of the nuclear powers to have a joint (nuclear) defence. In the course of the second stage (from 1998 until 2000) the "status of nuclear weapons states in a joint defence" will have been "defined in the context of preparations for an extended regime of non-proliferation. Finally, in the third stage (at the turn of the century), there would be "new forms of consultation between States with and without nuclear weapons... in order to make it possible for the EU to take action in its security policy, and to agree to an extended regime of non-proliferation (with obligations for States possesing nuclear weapons)." An obligation to be free of nuclear weapons is not, unfortunately, what is meant here. Quite the contrary: Nerlich is calling for the "forcible development of a West European defence organisation" as a long-time substitute for the USA. The nuclear powers should only relax their monopoly to the point at which Germany (and Japan) be ensured entry into their cartel as associate partners. The dilemma related to Germany's nuclear policy is that no country in the world really wants to see Germany acquire an increased nuclear status. This dilemma explains not only the material importance of nuclear sites in Germany such as Hanau, Karlsruhe, Jlich and Gronau, which only make credible the threat of a German bomb, thus being an important force for change. It also makes clear that Germany's withdrawal from the plutonium industry is not a basic energy policy issue but a matter of German foreign and defence policy. As long as "adherence to the 'European Option'... still continues to be the consistent model for Germany's defence policy"[14], Germany will not withdaw from the plutonium industry. Germany's nuclear ambitions and its persistence in retaining a plutonium stockpile have consequences reaching far beyond Germany itself, of course. THE JAPANESE-GERMAN PLUTONIUM AXIS Rarely have international conditions been so conducive as they are today to a "freeze" on plutonium separation and to existing plutonium stores being brought under international jurisdiction. The disassembling of warheads as a result of the disarmament agreements between Russia and America have created a flood of plutonium which makes any further separation of this bomb material patently absurd. At the same time the US's interest in multilateral control of Russian plutonium stockpiles has given an enormous impetus to the idea of "International Plutonium Storage". Thus US President Clinton, speaking to the UN General Assembly in September 1993, made the proposal - also expressly aimed at "civilian" nuclear programmes - "to eliminate where possible the accumulation of stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium and to... explore means to limit the stockpiling of plutonium from civil nuclear programs."[15] But he said he wanted to continue to accept the plutonium industry in two parts of the world - in Western Europe and Japan. This special treatment, the non-proliferation newsletter PPNN reported, was due to "the effects of German and Japanese interventions in Washington".[16] There is no intention to put US policy, oriented on status as it is, on a pedestal. When the US Congress a few weeks later in one voice called on the Clinton administration to proceed against West European and Japanese plutonium stockpiles too[17], it did so less out of altruistic idealism than from an interest in power. Nevetherless it cannot be disputed that the line aimed at Japan and Germany, whereby any use of plutonium from "civilian" programmes should be eliminated and the storage of "surplus" plutonium restricted, is of the greatest help to non-proliferation and deserves support. It is equally indisputable that German foreign policy on plutonium considerably aggravates the global situation concerning non-proliferation, and does so in several respects: * Firstly, there is no doubt that without Germany as an ally, Japan has hardly any chance of advancing its aggressive plutonium policy on its own. "I don't deny that difficulties in Germany could affect our projects", a Japanese industrialist stated in reference to this.[18] * Secondly, the US reform course is already opposed at the outset by the Japanese-German plutonium axis. It is fundamentally inconsistent to accept there being several tonnes of plutonium in Japan and at the same time condemn separation of such weapons-usable material in countries such as North Korea, Pakistan or India. * Thirdly, the rivalry between the two ideas - the US line of eliminating plutonium from all "civilian" cycles, and the Japanese-German line of introducing bomb material into the energy supply system as MOX reactor fuel, using large-scale industrial technology - has long since reached the CIS countries and Russia in particular. The plans of Siemens to export MOX technology from Hanau to Russia (heavily supported by the then Environment Minister of Germany, Mr. Tpfer) came up against resistance from the Clinton administration.[19] The tug-of-war over the Russian idea of a plan for plutonium has today still to be finally decided. The harshness of the conflict was indicated by a high German Government official, however, when he said: "We want to break down the US-Russian bilateralism in handling weapons-plutonium."[20] * Fourthly, the difference over plutonium between the two sides of the Atlantic has now escalated to a crisis in the relationship between the European nuclear community EURATOM and the USA, the global importance of which cannot be doubted. The bone of contention is the agreement for cooperation between EURATOM and the USA which is supposed to operate from 1 January 1996 and take the place of the 1958 cooperation agreement which expires at the end of 1995. THE US-EURATOM DISPUTE The stumbling-block is the supervising of plutonium and high enriched uranium of "US origin".[21] According to the US 1978 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act (NNPA), isolating, reprocessing and exporting this material requires the prior consent of the USA. With the renewal of the cooperation accord, the question of the application of this law to EURATOM - which until now has always been deferred - must, unavoidably, be faced. But any "prior consent" by the US has now become "politically, legally and technically unacceptable" for Europeans, as Wilhelm Gmelin, EURATOM's chief negotiator, a German, has written.[22] After months of internal arguments the Clinton administration in June 1994 finally went a long way to meeting the Europeans. It was prepared to renounce the "case-by-case" consent laid down in US law and instead give European plutonium reprocessing a blanket "advance programmatic approval" for the next twenty years. In having this "approval", Europeans could do what they liked with US-origin fuel "as long as they assured that it would not be used for weapons purposes." In only one event - a case prescribed in accordance with the NNPA - would all such wholesale approval have to be revoked "in order to prevent a significant increase in the risk of proliferation or a threat to national security."[23] A "programmatic approval" provision would mean that EURATOM would enjoy preferential treatment, as was granted to Japan in a cooperation agreement in 1988. However, EURATOM is still being awkward. The US's new proposal was, according to an EU official, also "totally unacceptable". The wish is not for a conditional blanket approval but for the unconditional renunciation of any US say in nuclear matters in Western Europe. Why is the European Union taking this intransigent course? The situation with Japan makes it clear that the USA is not putting up any resistance to the use of plutonium as a source of energy. This means the Europeans need in reality only fear a US veto if a new nuclear power or other military activities were to be established with the plutonium. In the hazy area of the military use of nuclear energy, in, for example, nuclear research clearly motivated for military reasons, the EU Commission appears to want to exclude the possibility of the USA having a say in the future at almost any price. The Commission's chief negotiators, Dominioni and Gmelin, for example, describe the question of "whether or not the use of nuclear materials, plants and devices under obligation can be designated for military but not nuclear explosive purposes" as a negotiating problem.[24] But were the negotiations to fail this would, according to Dominio and Gmelin, "crucially weaken the NPT". Such a failure would, moreover, probably mean there would be "difficulties or possible failure for the 1995 conference on extending the NPT".[25] This course implicitly confronts the Clinton administration with the not very comfortable alternative of losing all remaining influence on European (or German) nuclear weapons policy - or losing the instrument of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But since the "new independence" desired by the EU would at the same time also remove Japanese plutonium policy from any US influence[26], this means that the point to the unresolved US-EURATOM controversy is that its outcome will decide the course for the future in global dimensions. Germany's role can be quite clearly identified. The working group on nuclear non-proliferation policy founded by the German Foreign Policy Institute (DGAP) in 1992 had, at its second meeting (while headed by Karl Kaiser and Erwin Hckel) in July 1992, already been mainly concerned "with the problems of the US-EURATOM Agreement and its impending renewal in 1995."[27] "The German Fuel Cycle Industry Association ... (has) also called the Commission's attention to the danger of yielding to American pressure on consent rights," wrote the US publication Nuclear Fuel in September 1993. The German Government in May 1994 furthermore affirmed its agreement with the EU Commission's extremely hard negotiating line in replying to a parliamentary question.[28] CONCLUSION As highlighted in the text above, Germany has played a deliberate and obstructive role in the establishment of international nuclear non-proliferation over the past thirty years or more. Bonn's renunciation of atomic weapons was never the result of a policy that pivoted on self-imposed moderation, but always the consequence of external conditions and power relations. During the years of the Cold-War this was secondary to the nuclear stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, in the post-Cold-War era, Germany's role and influence is that much more significant. As much as the nuclear policies and intentions of the major nuclear powers, Germany deserves to be challenged over both its record and future intentions. The NPT Review and Extension Conference in April/May 1995 provides an ideal opportunity for that challenge. An important line of continuity in German foreign policy will be closed as long as the option of a German bomb is kept open. Only after Germany has unilaterally blocked the path that leads to nuclear weapons can the hope be justified that it has learned something from the past. Without a change in policy and clear committments to effective non-proliferation, Germany is likely to continue to undermine non-proliferation, perhaps one day going beyond its current status as a de facto nuclear weapon state. FOOTNOTES 1. For more details see: Kntzel, M., "Bonn and the Bomb - German Politics and the Nuclear Option", Pluto Press & TNI, London, December 1994. 2. Exact text of statements documented in: Kntzel, M., "Bonn and the Bomb...". ibid. 3. Europische Sicherheit [European Security], no. 6/93, p.279. 4. At the first preparatory NPT meetings in the summer of 1993 the Non-Aligned countries thus insisted on a supplementary NPT protocol "that would prohibit the deployment of nuclear weapons in foreign territories"; see Disarmament Times, June 1993, p.1. 5. Marc Dean Millot, The Washington Quaterly, Summer 1994, p.56. 6. See Bundestags-Drucksache [parliamentary records] no. 12/7472; according to Greenpeace data, 6.7 kg of reactor-grade plutonium (with 70% Pu239 isotope) are, with a neutron reflector, sufficient to make a nuclear weapon (see: The Plutonium Trade, Greenpeace International, Amsterdam, April 1993, p.19). 7. Victor Gillinsky, US safeguards expert and former member of the US Regulatory Commission; see: Greenpeace, ibid, p.8. 8. International Herald Tribune, November 2, 1993. 9. See: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 2, 1994. 10. Quoted from Jinzaburo Takagi, Civil Plutonium Surplus and Proliferation, Tokyo, 1994. 11. WEU document no. 1420, p.29ff. 12. Hckel, E. & Kaiser, K., "Kernwaffenbesitz und Kernwaffenabrstung: Bestehen Gefahren der nuklearen Proliferation in Europa?" [Possession of Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament - Are there Dangers of Nuclear Proliferation in Europe?]; in Krause, J. (ed.), "Kernwaffenverbreitung un internationaler Systemwandel" [Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Changes in the International System], Baden-Baden, 1994, p.254ff. berlegungen zur Neuordnung der euro-amerikanischen Verteidigung in Rahmen der Nato: Einige Voraussetzungen und Optionen" [Deliberations on the reorganisation of Euro-American Defence within Nato - Some Preconditions and Options], SWP-Arbeitspapier 2823, February 1994, p.37. (The term "most affected" stands for Germany) 14. Hckel, E., "Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Atomwaffensperrvertrag" [The Federal Republic of Germany and the Non-Proliferation Treaty], Bonn 1989, p.18. 15. Policy Information and Texts, September 29, 1993, p.8. 16. PPNN Newsletter, no. 3/93, p.5. 17. International Herald Tribune, January 2, 1993. 18. Nuclear Fuel, October 25, 1993, p.5. 19. See Nuclear Fuel: April 27, 1992; November 9, 1992; April 12, 1993. 20. Nuclear Fuel, October 24, 1994, p.9. 21. US-origin plutonium is plutonium from fuel rods the uranium of which had at one point been enriched in the US. According to Berkhout and Walker roughly half the plutonium separated in Western Europe bears the label "US-origin". (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September/October 1994). 22. Nuclear Fuel, October 11, 1993, p.4. 23. Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), statement by Paul Leventhal, September 29, 1994. 24. Dominioni, F.C. & Gmelin, W., "EURATOM und USA: Probleme und Perspektiven der Zusammenarbeit" [Problems and Outlook for Cooperation between EURATOM and the USA], see: Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen Gesellschaft fr Auswrtige Politik [research institute of the DGAP], "Probleme der nuklearen Nichtverbreitungspolitik" [Problems of Nuclear Non-Proliferation], Bonn, 1994, p.115. 25. Dominioni, F.C. & Gmelin, W., ibid., p.117. 26. Leventhal, P.C. & Greenberg, E.V.C., "Expiration and Extension of the US-EURATOM Agreements for Nuclear Cooperation", Washington 1993, p.15. 27. Institute annual report for 1992/93, p.8. 28. Bundestags-Drucksache [parliamentary records] no. 12/7472, May 2, 1994, p.14.