Germany is considering allowing a Russian company to produce nuclear fuel.
Фото: Pixabay
Germany is considering allowing a Russian state-owned company to participate in nuclear fuel production on its territory, despite Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine.
Politico reports this.
The project is a French-Russian joint venture that plans to produce fuel rods and assemblies at a plant in Lingen, northwest Germany. Framatome, a subsidiary of the French state-owned energy giant EDF, is to operate the facility. TVEL, a Rosatom subsidiary, will handle the Russian component of the project.
The project is awaiting final approval from German authorities, and decisions could be made as early as the coming weeks. Currently, Russian-developed fuel is used in 19 Soviet-style reactors in five EU countries, as well as 15 reactors in Ukraine.
Framatome claims that the project’s implementation will soon allow Europe to reduce its dependence on Russian nuclear fuel. The company notes that Russian engineers are not employed at the Lingen plant, and contacts with the Russian side have been significantly limited since the outbreak of the war.
Meanwhile, in Germany, the initiative is raising serious concerns about security risks and possible espionage. Lower Saxony Environment Minister Christian Maier, whose office must approve the project, compares the situation to Gazprom’s access to gas storage facilities in Rehden and warns against repeating a similar mistake with Rosatom.
In a 2023 expert report prepared for the German federal government, cooperation with Rosatom in Lingen was described as a potential threat to national and external security, particularly due to the risks of interference in the facility’s operations, influence on security decisions, and industrial espionage.
Framatome submitted its license application back in March 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine had begun. Despite this, according to Politico, the project has supporters in Berlin, and France also supports it, although it tries to play down its position publicly.
It was previously reported that Russia’s economy is facing mounting problems due to sanctions and high war costs, but these factors are not yet decisive in stopping the fighting. Analysts believe the Kremlin retains the ability to continue the war against Ukraine for at least another three to five years.
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