Four EU Countries Insist on Sanctions against Russian Nuclear Power Industry – Media

Poland and the Baltic countries have suggested including Russia's nuclear energy sector in the 11th EU package of sanctions.

According to RMF FM, which has a document dated March 30 with relevant proposals to EU countries, it suggests individual sanctions for Rosatom board members, and a ban on new contracts with the company, investments in the Russian nuclear sector, and import of Russian enriched uranium.

The four countries that have been calling for sanctions against Rosatom for months, trying to convince other countries, offer a series of exceptions and transition periods this time.

For example, the termination of "operations, contracts and other agreements" with "Rosatom" will occur gradually but not longer than two years.

Instead, Hungary will get a nine-year transition period to complete the construction of the Paksi nuclear power plant using Russian technologies.

The document's authors claim that the European Union countries have recently refused to cooperate with Russia in the nuclear sphere. They cite the example of the Czech Republic, which did not allow Rosatom to participate in the tender for the construction of a new nuclear power plant in March of last year. In May of 2022, Finland refused to cooperate with the Russian agency regarding constructing a nuclear reactor.

However, as Polish journalists note, it will be tough to get the agreement of the entire European Union on this issue.

Hungary, France, and Bulgaria are heavily dependent on Russian technologies or, like France, do not want to give up cooperation in this field, repeatedly expressing their disagreement.

In addition, Brussels believes that the 11th package of sanctions is aimed at preventing the circumvention of already introduced restrictions, ignoring new areas of the Russian economy.

Earlier, the EU planned the terms of discussion (Ukr) of the following package of anti-Russian sanctions in connection with the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.

Previously, Ukraine's President Zelenskyy discussed the need to prepare the 11th package (Ukr) of sanctions against Russia in a telephone conversation with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.