Ireland is among the European countries planning a fresh attack on Britain for its apparent failure to tackle nuclear pollution in the north-east Atlantic seas.
Fourteen Environment Ministers begin a two-day meeting in Bremen, Germany, tomorrow to discuss the OSPAR Convention. Mr Pat "the Cope" Gallagher will represent the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, at the gathering.
It is the first such meeting in five years, to discuss progress on the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic.
At the 1998 meeting - the year the convention came into force - the British Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, pledged that Britain had shed its "dirty man of Europe" image and would reduce radioactivity discharges from Sellafield into the Irish Sea.
Since then, according to Greenpeace, discharges have increased and are "set to double over the next few years".
Since 1998, discharges of radioactive waste into the seas have dominated OSPAR discussions.
Britain's Environment Minister, Mr Elliot Morley, is likely to face severe criticism, and OSPAR itself faces a credibility test if Britain and France are not held to account for their failure to implement the "non-reprocessing option" for nuclear waste, such as dry storage.
Mr Cullen said yesterday the Government continued to regard operations at Sellafield as "an unacceptable threat".
"The Government will continue through every diplomatic and legal means open to us to bring closure to the plant."
In Bremen, he added, Mr Gallagher would "be calling for substantial and progressive reduction in such discharges in line with the OSPAR Strategy on Radioactive Discharges".
