A COGEMA statement on its reprocessing-recycling contracts with german utilities

Press release

January 18, 1999

German government officials confirmed late last week that their government planned to terminate within one year any reprocessing by COGEMA on behalf of German clients. COGEMA repeats that the contracts executed at La Hague are placed under the umbrella of internationally binding agreements between both countries of France and Germany.

The French-German agreement, published on 17th August 1990 in the Journal Officiel (The Official Gazette), in particular, stipulates without any restriction whatsoever that the German government is committed to raise no obtacle to the access of German utilities to La Hague reprocessing capacities, to spent fuel transport from Germany to France, nor to the return of reprocessed material and conditionned waste to Germany.

This commitment cannot be abrogated by a law. It appears that the plans of the German government stand in contradiction with contractual commitments and legally binding international obligations. This precludes any possibility of invoking force majeure to break the contracts signed.