Germany approves controversial French-Russian nuclear project

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.

The state's environment ministry said in a statement Wednesday it had "decided to approve" the project.

Rosatom has been exempted from the successive rounds of EU 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 Wednesday that 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 website.

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.

Germany itself closed the last of its own nuclear reactors in 2023.