Germany approves controversial French-Russian nuclear project

BERLIN - German authorities said on June 22 they were giving the green light to a controversial French-Russian nuclear project which critics fear will enable spying and sabotage by Moscow.

The planned joint venture by a subsidiary of French company Framatome and Russia’s state-owned nuclear power agency Rosatom is aimed at producing fuel rods used in Russian-designed reactors.

It will be based at Framatome’s fuel rod assembly facility in the town of Lingen in the state of Lower Saxony, near the Dutch border.

Framatome’s subsidiary ANF (Advanced Nuclear Fuels) applied for permission for the project in March 2022, just weeks after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Lower Saxony’s environment ministry said in a statement on July 22 it had “decided to approve” the project.

This was despite the state’s environment minister, Christian Meyer, saying “dealings and close cooperation with Putin’s nuclear agency are totally wrong”.

Meyer said his ministry had “no legal possibility to reject or put a time limit to the application” in the absence of sanctions on Rosatom.

Rosatom has been exempted from the successive rounds of EU sanctions imposed against Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, given the lack of alternatives to Russia in the realm of civil nuclear energy.

‘Sensitive’ nuclear facilities

Meyer said one of the conditions of the approval was that Rosatom employees or those from Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL would only be allowed to enter the site “in very limited cases and accompanied by the relevant inspectorate”.

Any Russian equipment will have to go through external audits and will have to remain separate from other installations.

ANF’s employees will also have to attend regular training on security risks.

Lower Saxony’s environment ministry said the approval could be revisited “if new risks are identified”, particularly in “national security”.

Marc Henrichmann, a lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right CDU party, warned that Russians “are trying to seek indirect ways to keep vital parts of our critical infrastructure under their control”.

“Instead of Framatome entering a joint venture with (Rosatom), our French friends should turn to other producers,” Henrichmann, who chairs the parliamentary committee supervising intelligence agencies, told AFP.

“Our transatlantic partners have for some time been supplying Ukrainian reactors with the same fuel rods that the French now want to produce in Lingen with the Russians,” he said.

The Greens have also been vocal critics, saying it will enable Moscow to harvest “information on very sensitive nuclear facilities on German soil”.

Contacted by the AFP, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency refused to comment.

Germany is Ukraine’s biggest backer and has been on high alert for signs of “hybrid warfare” directed by Moscow.

Germany itself closed the last of its own nuclear reactors in 2023.

Former countries from the Soviet sphere of influence, as well as Finland, have nuclear power plants designed in the Soviet era and still need suitable fuel of the kind the project in Lingen will produce.

Russia also controls a large share of the global uranium supply thanks to its reserves and its interests in former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan. AFP