The war in Ukraine has undermined one of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most cherished projects.

It could lead to significant delays in the delivery of the Akkuyu power plant, Turkey's very first nuclear power plant, which is supposed to come into production in 2023. A date that owes nothing to chance since it corresponds to the centenary of the creation of the Republic of Turkey, which will be celebrated with great fanfare by the Turkish regime.

The project is pharaonic.

The Akkuyu plant, located in the south of the country on the shores of the Mediterranean, aims to supply Turkey with 10% of its energy needs with its four 1,200 megawatt reactors.  

With this project, Turkey aims to become "an energy hub between the Caspian Sea to the east and the European Union to the west", explains Nora Seni, professor at the Institute of Geopolitics of the University of Paris-VIII and former director of the French Institute for Anatolian Studies in Istanbul.

But Akkuyu is also a necessity, as Deniz Ünal, economist at the Center for Prospective Studies and International Information (CEPII) points out, "Turkey being the G20 country that has the fewest clean energy resources".

And this, while the country sees its energy needs increase tenfold.

"Turkey, which now has 84 million inhabitants, has just overtaken Germany in population. Its highly exporting industry is running at full speed and ultimately aims to export even more by following the trend of producing locally after the crisis. of Covid-19", continues Deniz Ünal.

The Russians at the controls of the nuclear power plant

The idea of ​​a nuclear power plant in Turkey has been simmering for thirty years.

After multiple calls for tenders and abortive mergers with Canadian companies but also Suez or Vinci, it was Rosatom, the Russian national company specializing in nuclear power, which ended up winning the contract in 2010 – with very many advantages.

Nora Seni sees it as "a way for Turkey to outbid the West by pretending to turn to Russia".

"A choice sometimes criticized by the Turks themselves", she underlines, because with this project, Turkey has granted large-scale concessions to Russia and increases its dependence vis-à-vis this power which already supplies more than 50% of its energy needs.

Several Russian banks, including Sberbank and Sovcombank, fully finance the plant.

Rosatom builds and operates Akkuyu, and in exchange, Ankara will pay the Russian company for the electricity produced for 25 years.

Rosatom also wins tax exemptions as well as the right to build and the exclusive use of a nearby port, i.e. a virtual seizure of a piece of Turkish territory.

However, Russian creditors, hit by Western sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine, have been cut off from the international banking system and find themselves unable to continue financing this 20 billion dollar project.

Ankara, which condemned the war in Ukraine, did not participate in the sanctions.

Rosatom has so far escaped international sanctions, but the option has reportedly been considered by the United States.

If the Russian company were sanctioned, it could affect the import of equipment needed to build Akkuyu.

Turkey unable to find other funding

For Turkey, it falls to the worst.

"The country is not far from bankruptcy. This is not at all the time to finance major projects", explains Deniz Ünal.

"The country is in dire need of financing, and it will have difficulty finding it from other international creditors because of the economic crisis it is going through, partly caused by bad monetary policy and huge inflation - nearly 70% in April."

And even if Turkey finds new investors, adds the economist, Turkish personnel have already been trained by Rosatom for this tailor-made project.

It therefore seems impossible to do without the Russians.

Result: of the four reactors initially planned for the Akkuyu power plant, only one, already out of the ground, could be delivered for next year.

A way to inaugurate the plant without losing face.

For Russia, it is also a matter of proving that it can still ensure its nuclear exports despite the sanctions.

A contested project on the ecological and safety levels

If time is running out for the Turkish president, it is also because the unprecedented project has been contested for years on the ecological and security levels.

"If the Akkuyu plant is built, it will be the first nuclear power plant on the Mediterranean Sea, a relatively warm sea. It is problematic to build this kind of plant on a warm sea, when we are subject to global warming and that nuclear technology requires cooling [generally by a nearby body of water, Editor's note]", notes Deniz Ünal.

"Don't let Akkuyu become another Chernobyl", can be read on the banner of these Greenpeace demonstrators in Ankara, April 26, 2012. © AFP

Another source of concern and not the least, Turkey is prone to earthquakes.

However, the Akkuyu site is located only 25 kilometers from a seismic fault.

Many environmental associations have sounded the alarm but have never been heard.

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