ITER, world’s largest fusion project, is feeling as squeezed as hot plasma in a tokamak. But it isn’t superconducting magnets applying the pressure, it’s the European Parliament, which this week rejected a plan to cover a €1.4 billion (US$1.8 billion) gap in the project’s construction budget.

This is the latest money problem for the chronically over-budget and behind-schedule fusion reactor. When it was approved in 2006, ITER was supposed to cost around €5 billion to build over a ten year period. These days its costs are believed to be roughly three times that amount, and ITER won’t be finished until late 2019.

The cost increases at the project have been particularly stressful for its host—the European Union (EU)—which must pay 40% of the construction costs. The most pressing issue has been a €1.4 billion budget gap in the project’s 2012-13 construction budget. Earlier this year, the European Commission proposed using money from elsewhere in the EU’s 2010 budget (including money from research). This week, parliament just said no.

The rejection appears to have been part of a larger budget dispute between the two bodies that share budget authority in Europe: the directly elected European Parliament and the European Council—a panel of national government figures like UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

Mark English, a spokesman for the European Commission, downplayed the announcement. “ITER’s additional funding needs must be met mainly in 2012/2013, not in 2011, so there is still time to find a comprehensive solution,” he said in an e-mail. He adds, “It is undeniable that it is a lost opportunity.”

Indeed, despite the budget impasse (and some terrible weather by the looks of it), construction of ITER is moving ahead.

Credit: ITER