India and the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty: Policy Options
Abstract The international community inside and outside the Conference of Disarmament is underscoring the need for concluding a fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT). The Indian government, for a long period, has been sponsoring the idea. Notwithstanding the international stagnation, the issue has been instigating periodic debate in India on the Indian approach. The periodic revival of the issue requires that India revisit its policy on fissile material production as well as its approach towards a possible FMCT. This article examines the question: should India's approach to conclude an FMCT be within the UN institutional framework? The new international reality is pushing for a new context, new realignments and a fresh outlook for an FMCT. India should take its own time to support conclusion of an FMCT so that its national interests and security are not adversely affected.
A World Free of Nuclear Weapons
nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage—to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world. Nuclear weapons were essential to maintaining international security during the Cold War because they were a means of deterrence. The end of the Cold War made the doctrine of mutual Soviet-American deterrence obsolete. Deter-
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.