Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala admitted his centre-right cabinet may not be able to sign the major €16bn Dukovany nuclear contract while in office.

“The honest response is that I hope we will make it [sign the Dukovany contract], but I don’t know, because it is not up to us,” Fiala replied to a Czech Radio (CRo) question about how probable it is that the contract will be signed during the current parliamentary term, which ends with autumn elections.  

The contract with South Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) faces extended delays after one of the two unsuccessful bidders, French Électricité de France (EDF), filed a lawsuit against the selection of KHNP.

The Brno court blocked the signing of the contract, stating it “preliminarily assessed the suing party’s arguments … as relevant and fairly strong, that is why it issued the preliminary measure. This does not yet mean that the suing party will succeed in a subsequent court case.”

The EU is also considering a review of the tender under foreign subsidy rules, according to media reports, and the EC spokesperson for competition Lea Zuber confirmed last week that “technical” talks are in place, as bne IntelliNews covered.

“European Commission has a right to investigate and review whether rules have been obeyed […] and whether some unwarranted support exists, but we are not worried about that,” Fiala also told CRo.

Czechia is to hold parliamentary elections on October 3-4, and the opposition ANO party of populist ex-Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is a clear favourite to win, though it remains unclear what sort of government ANO would be able to form. A grand coalition arrangement with Fiala’s neoliberal ODS party is a widely speculated option in the Czech media.

In the latest STEM poll for CNN Prima News, the Fiala-led SPOLU [Together] joint list trails ANO (32.3%) by a wide margin (20.7%), followed by opposition far right SPD (12.6%), centrist ruling coalition STAN (11.2%), liberal Pirate Party (7.3%), and red-brown Kremlin-leaning STAČILO! list (6.7%).

While ANO has criticised Fiala’s cabinet for mishandling the Dukovany tender, its leaders are committed to pursuing the project.

“If we will be in the government, we will respect the tender results, but we will talk with everyone on a highest level,” one of the ANO leaders and ex-Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček told conservative outlet Echo24 earlier this month. “I defend the interests of Czechia, which needs to finish the project,” Havlíček added.

During the CRo interview, Fiala also reiterated his stance that “without Dukovany, we won’t have enough energy we need. We are not able to replace everything with renewable resources […] we simply need to have nuclear” [sources].

With just 16.4%, Czechia sits at the bottom of the list of EU countries in terms of share of energy from renewable sources in gross electricity consumption, just above Malta (10.7%), and is one of just four EU members with less than a 20% share as of 2023, according to Enerdata. The EU average is 45.3%.