As the OSPAR convention on marine pollution went into session in Portugal, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) announced it had secured the biggest nuclear reprocessing contract ever awarded, a $6.9 billion clean-up deal signed with the US government. With OSPAR meeting to determine the fate of BNFL's reprocessing facility at Sellafield, it would be naive to suggest that the announcement was a coincidence. More likely it was a thinly-disguised attempt to knock economic, as opposed to environmental, sense into the British delegation headed by deputy prime minister, Mr John Prescott.
This was an acutely difficult issue for the Labour Government to contend with as Britain wants to be seen at the heart of the EU's drive for environmental sustainability which requires many hard decisions tied into action, rather than the sentiment of previous agreements.
The environment was a cause espoused often by the Labour Party when it was in opposition. Mr Prescott was the man who, in 1983, donned a diver's suit, and swam two miles along the river Thames to deliver a letter to Mrs Thatcher in Downing Street condemning the dumping at sea of barrels of nuclear waste - a stunt that Greenpeace recalled this week.
The irony of Britain resisting attempts by the OSPAR commission to force the closure of Sellafield, was not lost on the Danish environment minister, Mr Svend Yuken. He suggested it was implausible for Britain to agree to halt all discharges of hazardous chemicals into the north-east Atlantic but not to fully apply this to radioactive waste. The television footage of Mr Prescott whistling as the heads of delegations were gathering in Sintra suggested he too was a little uneasy with this stance. Fortunately, he agreed to a more binding agreement than merely moving to "demanding but achievable" controls.
The Sintra outcome may have the appearance of a three-card-trick about it, yet the tone of the agreement, and the extent of international unanimity, suggests that Britain will either have to deliver on discharge reductions - though they are not technically feasible in the short-term - or close Sellafield. Credit is due to France for announcing before OSPAR that it will reduce its discharges close to zero - provided it can come up with the technology. Mr Prescott acknowledged the passionate call from Ireland for a cessation, but it was the position of France that forced the issue, and resulted in a potentially satisfactory outcome. Greenpeace declared that Sellafield's death knell had been sounded. That remains to be seen.
The overall agreement, which includes greater efforts to eliminate discharge of many hazardous chemicals, has indeed signalled to oil companies and the nuclear industry, that they can no longer use the oceans as their "private tip". The outcome, despite some obvious loose ends, is a fitting European contribution to the International Year of the Ocean.