The Arsenal Summit

Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to the UK certainly did not go unnoticed. Mr. Sarkozy has created nothing short of a media frenzy since becoming President of France. With his glamorous lifestyle and of course high-profile marriage to ex-model Carla Bruni, some believe that President Sarkozy has been distracted from his work.

During his two-day state visit to the UK however, Sarkozy had a lot on his agenda, including the issue of nuclear energy. Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy discussed the possibility of a nuclear energy partnership between the two nations. The meeting took place at the Emirates football stadium in North London for the appropriately named ‘Arsenal Summit’ in an attempt to reach an agreement about the export of nuclear technology and the construction of new power stations.

While only 18% of electricity in the UK is generated from nuclear power, in comparison to more than 75% in the case of France, change is under way in Britain. In January, the government published an Energy Bill and a White Paper on Nuclear Power, ‘Meeting the Energy Challenge’, essentially giving the green light for the development and expansion of the nuclear energy sector. The government has taken the position that nuclear energy is a clean, safe and affordable way of providing energy to the population. In the White Paper, Gordon Brown stated how he was “confident that nuclear power can and will make a real contribution to meeting our commitments to limit damaging climate change”.

In his address to Parliament on Wednesday, Sarkozy passionately endorsed a new ‘Franco-British brotherhood’. I believe that this new relationship presents a great opportunity for the UK to take advantage of the nuclear expertise of the French. With the cost of oil still rising, the pressure to secure energy sources becoming bigger every day, and with the renewable power sector failing to deliver, the future of nuclear energy in the UK looks bright.