Germany greenlights controversial joint French-Russian nuclear project

Germany's environment ministry on Wednesday approved a French-Russian project to produce fuel rods used in Russian-designed reactors in the northwestern German town of Lingen. The joint venture project by a subsidiary of French company Framatome and Russia's state-owned Rosatom sparked fears of Russian spying, but German authorities said they had "no legal possibility to reject" it. Germany's environment ministry on Wednesday approved a French-Russian project to produce fuel rods used in Russian-designed reactors in the northwestern German town of Lingen.

The joint venture project by a subsidiary of French company Framatome and Russia's state-owned Rosatom sparked fears of Russian spying, but German authorities said they had "no legal possibility to reject" it. By: FRANCE 24 File photo ot French officials visiting a Framatome factory in Saint-Marcel in the Saone-et-Loire department, France taken April 27, 2026. © Jeff Pachoud, German authorities said Wednesday 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.

The project would be based at Framatome's fuel rod assembly facility in the town of Lingen in the state of Lower Saxony. 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. The state's environment ministry said in a statement Wednesday it had "decided to approve" the project.

This was despite the state's environment minister, Christian Meyer, restating his position that "dealings and close co-operation with Putin's nuclear agency are totally wrong". He said however that 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. Meyer said that 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".

The ministry also stressed that the approval could be revisited "if new risks are identified", particularly "in the area of national security". Roderich Kiesewetter, a prominent member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz 's centre-right CDU party, said Wednesday that the federal government should intervene to prevent the project from going ahead. The decision by Lower Saxony was "dangerous to security and must be reversed, Kiesewetter told the Politico website.

The Greens have also been vocal critics of the plan, saying it will that enable Moscow to harvest "information on very sensitive nuclear facilities on German soil". Germany itself closed the last of its own nuclear reactors in 2023. Germany is Ukraine's biggest backer in its fight to repel Russia's full-scale invasion and has been on high alert for signs of "hybrid warfare" directed by Moscow.