SIPRI Update, June 2008
Strengthening Threat Reduction: EU INDA
Return to International Non-proliferation and Disarmament Assistance index
European Union Non-proliferation and Disarmament Assistance
After 1991 the United States identified, financed, defined and implemented a large number of practical projects to assist countries in the former Soviet Union (and in particular Russia) with disarmament and demilitarization of weapons of mass destruction along with associated physical and human infrastructure.
Recently, the European Union (including the member states and the Commission) has become a progressively more important player in international non-proliferation and disarmament assistance.
The creation of the Global Partnership Against Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction by the G8 group of industrialized states was the catalyst for additional thinking by the EU about the value of international non-proliferation and disarmament assistance as a security building measure. Measures of this kind feature prominently in the Action Plan against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction developed by the EU Political and Security Committee at a meeting on 10 June 2003.
The EU does not have an integrated policy towards international non-proliferation and disarmament assistance. Programmes and projects are developed nationally by individual member states as well as collectively. EU assistance is financed using a variety of different national and collective mechanisms. Some projects are managed by the authorities of member states and others are managed by the Commission.
Community support to Russia: EU Joint Action on Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in Russia
EU Support to Nuclear Safety and Security
Any reproduction of text and data is authorized only by permission, SIPRI July 2004.