From multi-billion dollar American deals to French fuel cycles, Central Europe is fast-tracking its nuclear transition.
Lucia Lauková, euBrief
Zoltán BAROTÁNYI, Magyar Narancs
Adam Radoliński, Focus Europe
Luděk Májek, Update EU
Something significant is shifting in energy policy across Central Europe, but the Visegrád Four are not starting from the same place. Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary have run nuclear power plants for decades, all of them built on Soviet designs and fuelled by Russian uranium. Poland never got that far — its communist-era nuclear programme was abandoned — but it is now moving faster than any of its neighbours to make up for lost time.
What all four share is a common diagnosis: dependency on Moscow is a strategic liability, and Russia’s war on Ukraine made it impossible to keep ignoring. The goal is shared, but the paths to decoupling from Moscow differ; each country faces its own schedule and specific hurdles. What is also becoming clear is that escaping one dependency does not automatically mean achieving sovereignty. It may, increasingly, mean becoming dependent on someone else.
The renewed political commitment to nuclear energy across the V4 has more to do with geopolitics than with climate targets. Andrej Žiarovský, Director of Strategic Development and International Projects at VUJE Trnava, captures the core argument with a comparison: “To cover annual consumption, Slovakia needs approximately 55 huge tankers. A three-year fuel supply for two reactors fits comfortably into one ordinary room.”
For countries that have run Soviet-era reactors for decades, this compactness has always been part of nuclear energy’s appeal. The difference now is that the same technology that once anchored them to Moscow is being reoriented toward the West. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, at a March summit in Paris, called the retreat from nuclear a strategic mistake for the continent. The Commission now treats it as a strategic investment category after years of sidelining it — political cover that the V4 needs to make the economics of new nuclear work.
Poland is the most dramatic case. In March 2026, state company Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) submitted a formal construction permit application for Poland’s first-ever nuclear plant at Lubiatowo-Kopalino — a document running to over 40,000 pages authored by more than 200 experts. The technology is Westinghouse’s AP1000, with three reactors at a combined 3,750 MW, backed by a €42 billion state aid package approved by the European Commission in December 2025. As PEJ noted, the licensing procedure subjects the project to rigorous regulatory assessment — a prerequisite before any construction can begin. Major works are scheduled to start in 2028.
Slovakia is on a parallel track. The government has committed to an AP1000 at Jaslovské Bohunice, with estimated costs approaching €15 billion. “The Government of the Slovak Republic has decided that it will build a new nuclear source in Jaslovské Bohunice, and we will cooperate very closely with the United States of America on its construction,” announced Slovak Economy Minister Denisa Saková at an AmCham conference in Bratislava. The project company JESS is currently working through technical assessments, contractual frameworks, and permitting processes. Spokesperson Marta Pavliková noted that cost estimates remain indicative at this stage and will be refined depending on the project scope, the final contractual model, and the financing structure.
The Czech Republic chose differently. After excluding Rosatom from the tender in 2021, Prague awarded the Dukovany expansion to South Korea’s KHNP, with construction to begin in 2029 and the first unit targeted for 2036. The European Commission launched an in-depth investigation into the state aid package in December 2025, while acknowledging the project’s necessity.
Hungary remains the region’s outlier. The Paks II project, agreed in 2014 between Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin, committed Hungary to two new Rosatom reactors with 80 percent of the roughly €12 billion cost financed by a Russian state loan, awarded without public procurement and with key details classified for 30 years. Construction is significantly delayed.
Martin Jirušek of Masaryk University identified the structural problem with this kind of arrangement: “Other risks emerge. These are massive projects, creating long-term ties — lasting decades — with technology providers. Such relationships involve huge flows of finances, personnel, and materials. Within this space, numerous risks can arise.”
Following the two-thirds electoral victory of the Tisza Party, incoming prime minister Péter Magyar has pledged to review all contracts before deciding on a course of action. He considers nuclear energy necessary for Hungary’s energy mix, but has described Paks II as overpriced. A Western pivot for Hungary remains possible, but it would mean navigating exactly the same terrain as its neighbours.
The terrain all four countries are navigating has become more complicated since the European Commission introduced its proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), pushing for strict “Made in EU” requirements on public procurement and state aid in strategic sectors.
Slovakia and Poland both chose Westinghouse’s AP1000 before the IAA was on the table. The Czech Republic’s KHNP contract faces the same exposure. The Czech Chamber of Commerce warned explicitly in early March that strict application of the “Made in Europe” principle could jeopardise investments relying on non-EU partners.
The fuel transition illustrates just how technically complex these shifts are, independent of regulatory obstacles. “Nuclear fuel is one of the most complex engineering products, always specifically developed for each plant. In the case of Dukovany, the situation has been more complicated because, even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, no commercial supplier other than TVEL offered fuel for 440 MW reactors. Preparation takes years,” explained ČEZ spokesperson Ladislav Kříž, describing why Dukovany’s move away from Russian fuel has proven slower than Temelín’s.
The V4 spent years building the political will to move away from Russian nuclear technology. They now risk finding that Brussels, having encouraged that move, is raising barriers to the Western alternatives they have actually chosen.
There is one major nuclear supplier that clears both the geopolitical and the IAA compliance test simultaneously: France. While the headline new-build deals have gone to Westinghouse and KHNP, French company Framatome has been embedding itself across the entire V4 at the fuel level — and this may prove the most strategically durable form of influence.
In Slovakia, Slovenské elektrárne signed agreements with both Westinghouse and Framatome in 2023 and 2024, aiming for at least two independent suppliers for each stage of the fuel cycle, replacing TVEL whose contract ran until 2026. First Framatome deliveries for VVER-440 reactors are expected in 2027.
In the Czech Republic, Westinghouse delivered its first fuel shipments to Temelín in May 2025, with Framatome deliveries expected this year and cooperation on next-generation Dukovany fuel assemblies already confirmed.
In Poland, France has emerged as the leading candidate for the second nuclear plant following discussions between Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Emmanuel Macron.
The most significant development came in early April 2025, when Framatome and four European VVER-440 operators — ČEZ, Fortum, MVM Paks NPP, and Slovenské elektrárne — signed a contract for the joint development of exclusively European nuclear fuel, with production in Framatome’s French and German facilities.
“Long-term safe operation of nuclear power plants requires a stable and diversified fuel supply chain. Slovenské elektrárne’s participation in the development of European fuel for VVER-440 reactors is a logical step in managing technological and supply risks,” declared Branislav Strýček of Slovenské elektrárne.
Fuel is the recurring dependency that shapes an operator’s long-term relationships more than any single construction contract. By anchoring a new, exclusively European fuel supply chain for Soviet-era reactor types, Framatome is positioning itself as an indispensable partner for V4 nuclear operations regardless of which country builds which reactor with which technology provider. It is an influence built through infrastructure rather than through headline deals — and it is already in place.
France’s position looks solid at the large-reactor and fuel level. Small modular reactors (SMRs) reopen the competition on less comfortable terrain for Paris. All four V4 countries are examining deployment: Slovakia has identified potential industrial sites under the Phoenix project, the Czech Republic has formalised a 20 percent stake in Rolls-Royce SMR, and Poland has conceptual plans for an SMR at the Żerań plant in Warsaw.
Žiarovský is clear that the technologies are not rivals: “These technologies are complementary. In an energy mix, a large reactor makes as much sense as advanced modular technologies.”
The economic picture is considerably more complicated. Rolls-Royce sits outside the EU perimeter post-Brexit. Most advanced SMR developers are American. Framatome and EDF do not yet have a dominant SMR product. The Commission’s own analyses put levelised costs for microreactors at up to 140 US dollars per MWh — compared to around €61 per MWh at which Slovenské elektrárne delivered electricity to the grid in recent years.
“SMRs have their ‘but,’ and that is the cost per megawatt-hour generated. Until there are large series of these units, production will always be more expensive than with large sources,” explains Westinghouse’s Petr Brzezina.
Martin Jirušek of Masaryk University notes that the real advantage of SMRs lies in modularity and standardisation enabling serial production — but the first units cannot, by definition, be cheap. The “Made in EU” question for SMRs is unresolved, and no single supplier currently holds the structural position that Framatome has quietly built in the first wave of the V4’s nuclear transition.
No V4 country has yet resolved the back end of the nuclear cycle either. Slovakia and the Czech Republic both plan deep geological repositories, but not before 2065 and 2050 respectively — far behind Finland, whose Onkalo facility near the Olkiluoto plant is nearly complete. The Slovak Nuclear Regulatory Authority has been clear that decisions on the repository timeline are a matter for the state, not the regulator.
The EU taxonomy conditions nuclear’s classification as a sustainable investment on credible waste management plans, leaving green financing access uncertain for all four countries so long as those plans remain distant horizons.
The region is united in direction and fragmented in execution. Slovakia and Poland have committed to American technology while navigating an increasingly assertive Brussels. The Czech Republic has spread its bets across Korean, American, and British partners. Hungary is still entangled with Moscow while a new government calculates the cost of extraction.
Beneath all of it, France has been assembling something more durable than any single reactor contract: a web of fuel agreements, joint development deals, and industrial partnerships running through every country in the region.
The IAA, in whatever final form it takes, will not hurt Framatome. It may even be advantageous. The V4 moved away from Russian nuclear dependency with considerable speed once the political will existed. Whether what replaces it is genuine energy sovereignty, or a new dependency with a friendlier flag, is a question that will probably be best answered by the fuel supply contracts of the next decade.
(source: update-eu.cz)
