Romania rejects Doicești small modular reactor review in dual role

Romania's energy ministry closed the door on a review of the country's Doicești small modular reactor project twice in the same news cycle. The first time, it acted as the regulator that would have to sign off on any change. The second, as the majority shareholder of state nuclear company Nuclearelectrica, the ministry's two votes foreclose the ordinary procedural route for reopening the project before any new feasibility question can be put on the table.

The reassessment push came from shareholders who wanted a pause-and-review step before further commitments. The ministry, as the regulator, declined; the ministry, through its controlling stake in Nuclearelectrica, voted the same way in the company's general shareholders' meeting, where the proposal was also rejected by shareholders. Both Nuclearelectrica and project partner Nova Power & Gas have since confirmed the project is moving forward unchanged.

Doicești is the test case. The 462 MW-class small modular reactor, taken to Final Investment Decision earlier this year, is the only EU project of its kind with a firm, shovel-bound FID. It sits in Dâmbovița County on the footprint of a former coal plant, and the project company, RoPower Nuclear, is a joint venture between Nuclearelectrica and Nova Power & Gas. Construction at Doicești would be the first real-world deployment of a small modular reactor in Europe, which is why the cost-curve shock from the United States landed here as a feasibility question, not an abstract one.

That shock came from NuScale's 2024 cancellation of its Carbon Free Power Project in Idaho, the six-reactor SMR demonstration that was the U.S. reference case for first-of-a-kind economics. The cancellation, driven by customer cost-cap overruns, reset the cost baseline for every other SMR project still in procurement. The reassessment shareholders wanted would have re-examined cost, schedule, and technology-choice assumptions under the post-NuScale baseline. Romania is now the only EU member state carrying the European SMR reference case, and the dual rejection positions Doicești as the de facto bellwether project going into 2027. No other EU SMR is close to FID, which means Doicești's trajectory will set the European benchmark for whether first-of-a-kind economics can close.

The ministry, in both of its roles, declined the review, but the question of whether that decision reflects independent commercial judgment is open. Minority shareholders in Nuclearelectrica's general meeting voted the same way, and CEEnergy News reports no public dissent from RoPower Nuclear's joint-venture partners. If the regulator, the majority owner, and the minority owners all converged on the same answer, the decision reads as a commercial one, and the closure is durable. If the ministry's two hats dragged the outcome, the closure is procedural and the project is exposed to a different kind of reopening risk: political.

That distinction is where leverage now sits. With the regulator and the majority owner aligned, the ministerial review channel is closed. Three remaining channels could still surface the feasibility question. A parliamentary intervention, through the energy committee or a budget vote, is slow and uncertain. EU state-aid scrutiny, as the project moves into procurement, is the most institutional backstop. The third is a structural shift inside the RoPower Nuclear joint venture. RoPower was set up specifically to move Doicești from FID into procurement, and Nova Power & Gas's commercial stake gives it a separate decision right on contract structure. If partner economics worsen under the post-NuScale cost curve, the joint venture channel is the one most likely to surface a reassessment, because a partner acting on contract exposure is harder to wave off than a parliamentary motion.

Romanian-language coverage corroborates the vote outcome but does not add new facts. Trade and local press, including World Nuclear News and Romania Insider, agree on the headline; what they disagree on, implicitly, is who is responsible for keeping the timeline intact: the government, the company, or the project partners.

The next signal will come from RoPower Nuclear's procurement disclosures. The first major equipment or construction contract filed after July 2026 will be the test. If it lands on the existing budget envelope, the dual rejection reads as a commercial decision and the timeline holds. If it slips or restructures, the next reopening attempt will not be procedural. It will be a contract dispute, and the ministerial channel will not be the lever.