REAGAN EXTENDS U.S. COOPERATION WITH EURATOM
President Reagan signed an order 
allowing sales of U.S. nuclear fuel to the European Atomic
Energy Community (EURATOM) to continue for a further year, even
though they do not comply with a 1978 U.S. law.
    Under the law, which is designed to combat the spread of
nuclear weapons, foreign importers of U.S. nuclear fuel must
get American consent to any reprocessing.
    The United States and EURATOM have had a series of 11
rounds of talks from 1978 to 1986 to renegotiate its nuclear
cooperation agreements, signed more than 20 years ago, to
conform with the 1978 law.
    Since 1978 the U.S.-EURATOM nuclear coooperation accords
have been extended by a series of presidential waiver orders.
    State Department officials said negotiations had made more
progress in the last two years after the United States had
offered a longterm reprocessing consent arrangement, rather
than requiring EURATOM to have U.S. consent for each fuel
delivery.
     In notifying Congress of today's order extending
U.S.-EURATOM nuclear cooperation, Reagan said: "A disruption of
nuclear cooperation would not only eliminate any chance of
progress in our talks with EURATOM related to our agreements,
it would also cause serious problems in our relationships."
      He said further progress in talks with EURATOM was 
expected this year.
 Reuter
