BERLIN (AP) – The German government said Monday it cannot prevent a shipment of Russian uranium destined for French nuclear power plants from being processed at a site in Germany because nuclear fuel is not covered by European Union sanctions against Russia.
Environmentalists have called on Germany and the Netherlands to block the shipment of uranium aboard the Russian ship Mikhail Dudin in the English Channel for transport to a processing plant in Lingen, close to the German-Dutch border.
“We have no legal grounds to prevent the shipment of uranium from Russia because the sanctions imposed by the EU over the Russian invasion of Ukraine exempt imports of nuclear fuel, such as Russian gas, to the EU from import bans,” said one spokesman for the German Ministry of the Environment, Andreas Kuebler.
The security requirements for the shipment had been examined and found to be compliant, meaning German authorities had to approve it, he added.
“You can imagine that we are looking very critically at such uranium shipments because of the Russian invasion, but also because of Germany’s exit from nuclear power in general,” Kuebler told reporters in Berlin, noting that the government has been working to shut down the processing plant in Lingen and a second in nearby Gronau.
The Lingen plant is operated by Framatome, which has a majority stake in the French utility company EDF. The French government has a majority stake in EDF, which controls all French nuclear power plants.
Environmental groups, including the Russian organization Ecodefense, urged European countries to halt all uranium purchases from Russia, citing the UK government’s recent decision to prevent the Mikhail Dudin from loading nuclear waste near Liverpool for processing over there.
Government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann said Germany is constantly assessing whether to extend sanctions but declined to say whether there were any concrete plans to get the EU to block nuclear fuel imports.
Environment Ministry spokesman Kuebler noted that Russia is not the only supplier of uranium.
“Canada, for example, would be another possibility,” he said.
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