European Union (EU) ministers have asked the European Commission to provide them with information about the cost of going it alone with building an ITER prototype in France, should there be no global consensus on where this should be sited. The EU Council of Ministers wants to take a decision on how to proceed with ITER at its November 25-26 session.
The request comes after Janez Potocnik, the incoming commissioner for research raised such a possibility as a "very last resort." The cost of ITER's construction under global cooperation has been previously placed at around €25 billion.
