EU to finance IAEA lab to track nuclear material
(WASHINGTON) - European Union President Herman Van Rompuy on Tuesday said the EU will provide funds to expand a lab at the International Atomic Energy Agency that traces smuggled nuclear materials.
As part of international efforts to ensure "the highest level of nuclear security," the EU supported developing the IAEA's forensic capabilities "to determine the origin of illicitly transferred nuclear and radioactive materials," he said at a 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington.
The EU planned "a specific financial contribution" for "the expansion and modernization of the IAEA Safeguards Analytical Laboratory," according to the text of his remarks released in advance.
Van Rompuy did not specify the amount of the EU contribution to the UN nuclear watchdog. But he said it would come from the EU's Instrument of Stability fund, set up in 2007 in part to back efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
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