FPN03-60

ITER Parties Missing Milestones

October 14, 2003

The international ITER Parties have missed several self-imposed milestones associated with selecting a site for ITER construction. The European Union was expected to downselect between the proposed European sites in France and Spain by September 23 but the Council of Ministers was unable to agree by that date and have still not picked their preferred site. The Canadian government was supposed to decide on whether to provide federal backing to the Canadian site offer by September 18, postponed the decision until October 2, and then missed that deadline.

As a result of the above, the meeting of senior government officials from the Parties, charged with bringing the ITER process to conclusion by the end of the year, met for the second time October 9-10 without the basic input required to bring the site selection process nearer to completion. They have scheduled their next meeting for December in Vienna, Austria.

Meanwhile, India has indicated an interest in joining the effort but has been told they must now wait until the current negotiations have been concluded. The current list of ITER participants is the European Union, Japan, Russia, the U.S., Canada, China and South Korea.