Christian Meyer, environment minister of Lower Saxony, has come out against plans to make fuel assemblies at the Lingen plant under a Russian licence for customers in Bulgaria and four other countries. His ministry licenses and oversees the plant.

The firm Advanced Nuclear Fuels (ANF), a subsidiary of France's Framatome, plans to make assemblies there for Russian-design reactors under a licence from TVEL. TVEL is the nuclear fuel arm of Russia's state corporation Rosatom. The plant will be rebuilt to make assemblies for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Finland.

A Framatome spokesperson said the plant has received final confirmation of its expanded permit. The permit dates from July. At that time, officials in Lower Saxony said they had no legal grounds to refuse the licence, despite political objections.

Meyer accused the government of chancellor Friedrich Merz of doing too little to stop the project. He said he is surprised that the whole federal government is so calm about working with Rosatom in Lingen and sees no change in security.

The federal environment ministry is again against working with Rosatom, but says the concerns should be settled at European level. "The right tool for this is EU-wide sanctions, including on the nuclear sector," a ministry spokesperson said. Most member states have not yet backed such a step.

A complaint against the project by the German environmental group BUND has yet to be heard. Until then, the group will ask the court to suspend the permit temporarily. It says Rosatom's involvement poses a security risk.

Rosatom said it is not taking part in the court case and does not own the plant. It referred questions about the plant's work to ANF and its shareholders.

In December 2022, Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear plant and Framatome signed a deal to supply fresh nuclear fuel for Unit 6. The deal is part of efforts to diversify supplies.