CND Press Roundup Monday 16th May 2022

War in Ukraine

• Leaders in Finland and Sweden confirmed Sunday that they would be submitting applications to join NATO – abandoning decades of non-alignment. Public and political opinion in favour of joining the military alliance has grown in the months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats dropping their opposition to joining NATO at the weekend. Russia previously said it would move more nuclear weapons to the region in the event of NATO enlargement in the Baltic. However, in a press release by the Social Democrats, the party said it would “work to ensure that Sweden, if the application is approved by NATO, expresses unilateral reservations against the deployment of nuclear weapons and permanent bases on Swedish territory.”

• Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy head of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), has an opinion in the Financial Times on the game of ‘nuclear chicken’ playing out alongside the war in Ukraine – and how Crimea may be the tipping point. Russian nuclear doctrine dictates that Moscow could launch a strike in the event the country is under “existential threat” – even by conventional weapons. With Russian forces bogged down in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, and Ukrainian forces determined to regain territories initially lost in 2014 – Chalmers sees the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula as a potential flash point for nuclear tensions: “In the absence of a ceasefire, however, Ukrainian forces will be keen to prevent Crimea becoming a sanctuary from which the Kremlin can resupply its forces in the rest of Ukraine. Supplies of longer-range weapon systems from western states are opening up new targeting possibilities. The Kerch bridge could be a tempting prize, as could Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol. If attacks on these targets were perceived as precursors to a full-scale Crimean invasion, they could increase the risk of nuclear escalation. This is one of the most concerning scenarios. Putin was at pains to emphasise this risk in the months before the invasion.”

Global Abolition

• Some responses in the letters page of The Guardian to Daniel Immerwahr’s recent long read on the faded memories of nuclear war and a lack of leaders who fully “understand their consequences.” Dr Douglas Saltmarshe writes: “A group of people who do understand the consequences is the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). A charitable wing of the CND offers talks to schools across the country on the awful potential of these horrifying weapons. There are still some who seek to alter this fateful trajectory.”

Iran Nuclear Deal

• The EU’s foregin policy head, Josep Borrell, told reporters on Friday that recent talks with Iranian officials was “positive enough” to continue efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Borrell’s announcement comes on the back of a recent visit by his deputy, Enrique Mora, to Tehran last week, as part of efforts to help bridge a negotiating gap between Iran and the US. “These things cannot be resolved overnight…Let’s say the negotiations were blocked and they have been de-blocked,” Borrell said adding that there was the prospect of”reaching a final agreement.”

• Responsible Statecraft looks at the news that three EU diplomats returning from nuclear talks with Iran, and who were briefly detained for 40 minutes on their return to Brussels via Frankfurt airport. Enrique Mora, the EU’s top diplomat involved in talks to restart the 2015 nuclear deal, tweeted on Friday morning that the trio also had their phones taken “without explanation.” While the bloc has tried to downplay the issue the writer asks: “When a member state treats a top EU official in such a derogatory way, it inevitably raises questions about the unity within the EU — an asset that the EU officials are willing to emphasize as they deal with external threats, such as the Russian aggression in Ukraine, for example. Such incidents also greatly undermine the EU’s relations with third party countries. Events in Frankfurt obviously did not go unnoticed in Tehran. The fact that Mora’s phone was temporarily confiscated no doubt raised concerns that it might have been compromised. This further damages the bloc’s credibility — particularly given the sensitivity of Mora’s mission in Tehran.”

Nuclear Korea

• South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported comments from an official working for South Korea’s new president Yoon Suk-yeol – that North Korea is almost ready to carry out its seventh nuclear test, which could take place after a ballistic missile test. The official added that while Seoul expected the South Korean economy to take a hit due to the ramping up in missile tests – the government was preparing a series of actions plans on handling North Korea, as well as other regional and global issues, and will be presented to US president Joe Biden during a summit later this month.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is in the US this week – where he’s expected to meet with the US Energy secretary as part of efforts to drum up American interest in funding British nuclear power plants. A Whitehall source told The Telegraph that the government was concerned that the UK has “become too reliant on a handful of companies to develop new nuclear,” referring to French-owned EDF and Chinese-state owned China General Nuclear. They added: “Britain split the atom and built the world’s first full-scale nuclear power station, but we’ve fallen so far behind after three decades of drift. We want British and American companies to pile in the cash to get our nuclear renaissance off the ground. The Business Secretary is keen to work with safe and reliable investors from like-minded countries and hug them close.” Kwarteng will also discuss the delivery of US supplies of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as part of efforts to ease supply shortages.

• Some good coverage of Sunday’s march against the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk, with local reports, the BBC, ITV, and Independent among those reporting on the protest. The march – attended by hundreds of people – comes just days after the government announced it was delaying a planning decision on the project until July. Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C said: “A decision to go ahead with Sizewell C would be a wrong decision. EDF has clearly not taken this community with them, and the Government has totally betrayed the faith of local people in due process by repeated commitments to Sizewell C when it doesn’t have planning consent, let alone a final investment decision.”

• The Times looks at the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) funding model that the government is planning to use to raise capital for its new nuclear power plants. The scheme would see bill-payers pay more money on their bills up front. Backers of the model say the method will ensure money is made available to the firms involved in nuclear projects quickly. However, Simon Cran-McGreehin, head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) Cran-McGreehin said the method transfers risk to customers instead of those building the station. Gran-McGreehin also questioned the government’s commitment to nuclear: “Governments do from time to time get very excited about nuclear, then cool off…I am not convinced all this will actually come to pass, and in the meantime it risks taking the focus away from investment in renewable energy.”

Fukushima

• Japan’s largest steel producer has called for an urgent restart of Japan’s nuclear power production in order to make the country’s export market more competitive. Kiyoshi Imamura, who heads Tokyo Steel Manufacturing, said the phasing out of coal and a rise in commodity prices was making it tough to secure enough power and had led to rising electricity bills.