At a summit due to take place in three weeks’ time, British ministers will discuss with their French counterparts a plan under which the two European Union nations would share nuclear testing facilities.
The proposal would almost certainly involve technology from Britain’s 160 nuclear warheads being tested in a laboratory based in France.
Under a convention in place since the Cold War, the UK is forbidden from sharing its nuclear secrets with another country – this is because the British Trident missile is based on American technology.
Ministry of Defence sources stressed however that the use of the French testing facility , the Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique, would not involve the sharing of warheads or technology.
The plan would save the Government significant sums, because although the French would be paid for the use of the testing site, the MoD would be spared the much greater expense of building its own facility.
British officials are understood to have consulted with the US about the move. A source told the Financial Times: “If we don’t share some of these capabilities we will lose them.
“But making progress is easier now than it was. France is in Nato and many of the issues that divided us in the past – such as the Iraq war – have now disappeared.”
