German authorities on Wednesday gave the green light to a controversial French-Russian nuclear project which will use a factory based in Germany for production, and 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 will produce fuel rods used in Russian-designed reactors – at Framatome's fuel rod assembly facility in the town of Lingen in the German state of Lower Saxony.
Germany closed the last of its own nuclear reactors in 2023, but has not abolished all nuclear-related industrial activity.
The Lingen fuel plant is treated as a separate facility with its own legal status and licences.
The state's environment ministry said in a statement on Wednesday it had "decided to approve" the project, adding that “so far, Russia’s nuclear sector and the import of Russian uranium into the EU have not been subject to sanctions, despite Putin’s criminal war of aggression against Ukraine".
Rosatom has been exempted from the successive rounds of European Union sanctions imposed on Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Kyiv-based Dixi Group, a think tank that focuses on energy, warned against the cooperation in 2024, urging the Lower Saxony government to deny Framatome permission to expand its production facility in Lingen.
Dixi, along with German anti-nuclear organisations – including AgiEL, a group that focuses on Lingen’s nuclear facilities – is warning of "potential risks to Germany’s nuclear and internal security, particularly concerning Rosatom’s possible access to critical infrastructure".
Roderich Kiesewetter, a prominent member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's centre-right CDU party, said the federal government should intervene to prevent the project in Lingen from going ahead.
The decision by Lower Saxony was "dangerous to security and must be reversed," Kiesewetter told the Politico news site.
Germany is Ukraine's biggest backer in its war with Russia and has been on high alert for signs of "hybrid warfare" directed by Moscow.
(with newswires)
