Since the beginning of Russia's attack on Ukraine, and until this April, the European Union has already announced ten packages of economic sanctions with a total of 1.242 individual measures - from the import of certain products to freezing the assets of numerous tycoons and Russian companies. It is striking, however, that among all these sanctions there is no ban on the import of Russian uranium. Of course, the Kremlin's income from the Rosatom trade cannot be compared to Russia's income from gas, oil or coal, but it is still a very serious amount, certainly far more than from caviar.
The German Economy Minister Robert Habek (Greens) referred to this after his recent visit to Kiev: Ukraine wants Russian uranium to come under sanctions, and the German minister agrees with that. On the Deutschlandfunk radio station, he also said that he understood that the ban could not be implemented immediately, because "we could not do that with oil or coal." But, he says, deadlines should be set - significantly reduce imports in half a year, "and after nine months the story would come to an end".
The German government also proposed to the European Commission that business with the Russian nuclear industry be included in the next, 11th package of sanctions, but that proposal will be very difficult to support by all 27 members of the Union. The most vocal opponents are Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, i.e. countries that still have Soviet-made nuclear power plants and that depend on cooperation with the Russian state concern Rosatom.
Uranium still somehow, but fuel elements - not at all
As Mikle Schneider, an energy expert from Paris, explains for the public service ARD, uranium is actually a minor problem. Admittedly, in 2021, about 20 percent of the need for natural uranium was met from Russia, and another 24 percent from countries under the influence of the Kremlin, from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, but Schneider believes that it will not be particularly difficult - although somewhat more expensive - to compensate for this amount by importing from countries such as Canada, Australia or South Africa. Russia, with a third of the world's capacity for enriched uranium, is certainly an important supplier, but there are also alternatives.
It is a much bigger problem to find fuel modules for Soviet-type nuclear reactors elsewhere. There are 15 more such in the EU, and those elements must be of exact specifications and degree of nuclear activity so that they cannot be made overnight somewhere else.
It should also be recalled that last spring, when the war in Ukraine started and sanctions against Russia were announced, a Russian plane was still granted an emergency permit to land in the EU - in order to bring fuel elements for nuclear reactors in Europe. Of course, this was Moscow's policy from the beginning: to create such a dependence on supplies from Russia that it simply cannot be done without them, Schneider believes.
C'est unacceptable
However, it is not only countries with Soviet nuclear power plants that are opposed to EU sanctions in that sector: Schneider singles out France, which signed a long-term strategic cooperation agreement with Rosatom in December 2021 through the company "Framatome". At the beginning of 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron even offered a Russian nuclear company 20 percent of the ownership of a French company that produces special steam turbines for atomic power plants. Paris carefully nurtures cooperation with Russia in that area, because if sanctions were introduced there, "France would practically lose the only market where it could market its turbines," says Schneider.
Although it is obvious that there are completely opposite interests among the EU members, which is the reason for doubts about the sanctions, it should also be said that this is not covered by the sanctions of the United States of America. Anke Herold from the Institute for Applied Ecology in Berlin reminds us that the USA does have other sources, but twenty percent of low-enriched uranium for American reactors still comes from Russia, and another thirty percent from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
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