[en] At the moment, nuclear power plant regulators do not predominantly consider constraint and biaxial effects in their concepts for failure assessment of nuclear components. The warm pre-stressing (WPS) effect is only partly considered in some assessment procedures and codes. There is also a lack of a harmonized treatment of these effects in the safety assessment of European plants. This paper introduces the project CABINET (Constraint and Biaxial Loading Effects and their Interactions Considering Thermal Transients) which is a collaborative project under the EU's Network of Excellence NULIFE. The overall objective of CABINET is to investigate and understand constraint, biaxial loading and WPS effects in terms of a clearly defined application window, especially in the light of long term operation. The focus lies on already available experimental data and methodologies. The intention is to provide recommendations for a harmonized application of those effects in European nuclear safety assessment. The possibility to include different level of analysis depending on input data and acceptance of National Regulatory Body is also being evaluated. Although the CABINET project is not completed yet, it has been found that it is possible to rationalize the different existing codes. (author)