German authorities on Wednesday, July 22, approved a controversial French-Russian nuclear project that critics warn could facilitate Russian espionage and sabotage.
The planned joint venture between a subsidiary of French Framatome and the Russian state atomic agency Rosatom aims to produce fuel assemblies for Russian-designed reactors. The project will be based at Framatome‘s nuclear fuel production plant in the city of Lingen, Lower Saxony.
Framatome‘s subsidiary, ANF (Advanced Nuclear Fuels), applied for a permit for this project in March 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. The Ministry of the Environment of Lower Saxony announced on Wednesday that it had “decided to approve” the project.
The decision was made despite Christian Meyer, the Minister of the Environment of Lower Saxony, affirming his view that “cooperation with Putin’s nuclear agency is absolutely wrong.” He noted that his ministry lacked “the legal possibility to reject or limit the term of the application” due to the absence of sanctions against Rosatom. Rosatom has not been included in any of the EU‘s sanction packages introduced following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Approval conditions and security concerns
Meyer stated that one condition of the approval is that employees of Rosatom or the Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL would be permitted to enter the facility “only in very limited cases and accompanied by appropriate inspection.” The ministry also emphasized that the permit could be reviewed “if new risks are identified,” particularly “in the area of national security.”
Roderich Kiesewetter, a prominent member of the center-right party CDU led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, stated on Wednesday that the federal government should intervene to halt the project’s implementation. The decision by Lower Saxony authorities is “a danger to security and must be reversed,” Kiesewetter told Politico. The Green Party also sharply criticized the project, arguing that it could grant Russia access to “information about very sensitive nuclear facilities on German territory.”
Germany is a key partner for Ukraine in countering Russia’s full-scale invasion and remains on heightened alert due to the risks of “hybrid warfare” associated with Moscow. At the same time, the country permanently shut down its last nuclear power plants in 2023.
Countries from the former Soviet bloc, along with Finland, operate Soviet-designed nuclear power plants and still require the appropriate nuclear fuel, which will be produced by the facility in Lingen. Russia also maintains a significant share of the global uranium supply market due to its own reserves and assets in former Soviet states, particularly in Kazakhstan.
Source: Channel NewsAsia
