The Establishment of Euratom and the Problem of Nuclear Safeguards

The article examines how the Western European countries-members of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom)established their own safeguards system in parallel with the creation of the IAEA. Nuclear safeguards are an essential part of the international regime of nuclear non-proliferation. They contain a set of technical measures, including inspections, to verify that states adhere to their international obligations not to use nuclear programmes for weapons purposes. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the primary institution that administers this international regime. The research is based on official texts of the IAEA and Euratom, published American diplomatic documents, and declassified records from the US National Archive (College Park, Maryland). American documents shed light on why the United States, the main architect of the IAEA, authorised Euratom to implement its own safeguards. First, the safeguards provisions of the statute of the IAEA and the treaty establishing Euratom are compared. Second, the study traces the development of American-Western European cooperation in the peaceful use of atomic energy, part of which was the United States-Euratom agreement for cooperation. The problem of nuclear safeguards became the main obstacle for signing the agreement. While the US Atomic Energy Commission and the first director general of the IAEA, Sterling Cole, insisted on American or international inspections, the Western European countries perceived the international system of nuclear safeguards as a threat to national sovereignty. Europeans favoured "self-inspection" among the Euratom member states over the IAEA safeguards. American documents demonstrate that, for the sake of European integration, the Eisenhower administration supported the Euratom safeguards system. It was an independent system, the functioning of which the United States could review from time to time. The author shares the opinion of those historians who consider that the privileges granted to Euratom undermined the role of the IAEA. Even after the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which established the legal basis for an international safeguards regime, Euratom did not relinquish its right to inspections to the IAEA. The Euratom self-inspection had been limiting the IAEA authority to control nuclear proliferation. The safeguards issue became a major source of tensions between Euratom and the IAEA for many years afterward.