EU Auditors publish report on EU funding for nuclear safety in non-EU countries

On Wednesday 4 March 2026, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) will publish a special report on international nuclear safety cooperation.

The 1986 Chernobyl accident and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 raised major concerns about the safety of nuclear facilities operated in the newly independent states. More recent developments, such as the Fukushima accident in 2011 and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine since 2022, have highlighted new risks. However, demand for energy continues to rise worldwide, and nuclear technologies account for a growing share of supplies. Historically, the EU has been an active promoter of international nuclear safety cooperation. Grants from the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation and loans from Euratom have supported a wide range of activities, from education and training to the provision of expertise and the supply of safety-related equipment, infrastructure and remediation work.

The report will examine the design of the EU’s framework, the allocation and monitoring of EU financial support, and the results achieved by EU-funded measures to improve nuclear safety in Armenia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The report and press release will be published on the ECA’s website (eca.europa.eu​) at 17:00 CET on Wednesday 4 March. The ECA Member responsible for the report is Marek Opioła.

The ECA’s special reports set out the results of its audits of EU policies and programmes or management topics related to specific budgetary areas. The ECA selects and designs these audit tasks to be of maximum impact by considering the risks to performance or compliance, the level of income or spending involved, forthcoming developments and political and public interest.​