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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron travels on Wednesday to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the place he hopes to safe uranium for his nation’s nuclear vegetation.
The journey comes as geopolitical tensions develop with the EU’s present main suppliers, Niger and Russia.
Macron’s go to to the 2 nations goals to develop French affect in an space which has robust ties with Russia and is now additionally rising nearer to China, an Elysée official stated.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are respectively France’s largest and third-largest suppliers of uranium, which is burned to gasoline nuclear vegetation.
Final summer season a army junta took over Niger, which provides 15 % of France’s uranium wants, sparking questions as as to if the African nation can proceed to be a dependable supply. Uncertainty has additionally surrounded imports of Russian uranium since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Niger raises questions, Russia might elevate questions in the long run [if] the EU imposes sanctions on the nuclear sector. Macron’s go to to Central Asia helps to anticipate these considerations,” stated Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, an vitality skilled on the Jacques Delors Institute suppose tank in Paris.
Russia’s nuclear sector has not been focused by EU sanctions up to now, however member nations proceed to show away from Moscow. The amount of uranium the EU imported from Russia fell by 16 % final yr from 2021, whereas the quantity from Kazakhstan rose by over 14 %.
Earlier this yr, Yerzhan Mukanov, CEO of the nation’s state-run nuclear agency Kazatomprom, informed POLITICO he was seeing growing curiosity from Europe, and that Kazakhstan “intends to turn into a big contributor to the European nuclear market.”
French nuclear agency Orano is energetic in Kazakhstan, the place it has been working uranium mines because the Nineteen Nineties, and extra just lately in Uzbekistan. Orano President Claude Imauven is accompanying Macron on his journey together with 14 different French executives, together with Luc Remont, head of French vitality large EDF.
An Elysée official stated that new contracts and enterprise partnerships can be introduced in the course of the journey, together with within the vitality sector.
EDF has additionally positioned itself to turn into a provider of nuclear reactors for Kazakhstan’s first nuclear plant.
The go to comes as Brussels competes with China for affect within the area through funding applications targeted on infrastructure.
Each Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are benefitting from Chinese language funding below Beijing’s Belt and Highway Initiative, with their presidents attending a high-level assembly on the topic in Beijing in October. The EU is making an attempt to achieve affect within the two nations by involving them in cooperation and funding tasks below its “World Gateway” initiative, the bloc’s response to Belt and Highway.
Victor Jack contributed reporting.
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