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EU France

nuclear talks

next week

BRUSSELS: European Commission scientific experts are to meet French counterparts next week to discuss Paris's proposed Pacific nuclear tests, a Commission spokesman said on Friday.

Thierry Daman said French European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier had agreed that the two sides should meet on August 24.

In Paris, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the meeting would take place in Paris.

The Commission, the EU's executive, has been seeking a meeting, which it hopes will lead to visits by its experts to the Mururoa Atoll nuclear test site.

Barnier agreed to a meeting a week ago but Daman said it had taken until now to work out the details. He added that France had been cooperative in the discussions.

France has already agreed to allow independent scientists, including ones chosen by the Commission, to visit its testing sites when tests are completed.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yves Doutriaux, said the meeting's goal was to provide the commission experts with scientific information they have requested, notably on the methods used to obtain radiation levels measured by France on its South Pacific nuclear test sites.

The Commission, meanwhile, is trying to gauge what responsibility it may have in the matter before the tests take place.

The EURATOM treaty -- governing EU nuclear matters -- says the Commission must give its assent for "particularly dangerous" experiments which are liable to affect the territories of other EU member states.

Commission officials have suggested that the legal question may not be decided until after the executive returns from its summer break in early September.-Reuter