German authorities approve French-Russian nuclear fuel project

On 22 July 2026, German authorities said they had approved a disputed French-Russian nuclear project that critics fear could enable spying and sabotage by Moscow.

The planned joint venture between a subsidiary of French company Framatome and Russia's state-owned nuclear power agency Rosatom is intended to produce fuel rods for Russian-designed reactors. The project would be based at Framatome's fuel rod assembly facility in Lingen, in the German state of Lower Saxony.

Lower Saxony's environment ministry said in a statement that it had decided to approve the project.

Rosatom has been exempted from successive rounds of European Union sanctions imposed against Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a prominent member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's centre-right CDU party, said the federal government should intervene to stop the Lingen project. He told Politico that the Lower Saxony decision was dangerous to security and must be reversed.

Germany is Ukraine's biggest backer in its fight against Russia's full-scale invasion, according to the source, and has been on high alert for signs of hybrid warfare directed by Moscow. Germany closed the last of its own nuclear reactors in 2023.