Romanian President Klaus Iohannis promulgated on July 16 the law on the ratification of the agreement between the Government of Romania and the Government of the United States of America on cooperation in connection with the Cernavoda nuclear power plant expansion and other energy projects in the civil nuclear energy sector.

The agreement, signed in Bucharest on December 9, 2020, and Upper Marlboro on December 4, 2020, will remain in force for a period of 30 years. It will be automatically extended for successive periods of five years if one of the parties so requests. Between October 7 and 9, 2020, in Washington, the draft agreement between the Government of Romania and the Government of the United States of America on cooperation in the field of development of nuclear power projects at Cernavoda and in the civil nuclear energy sector in Romania was initiated.

Under the agreement, Unit 1 will be refurbished, and the capacity of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant will be expanded by building Units 3 and 4, according to a press release of the Ministry of Energy. The technology used in the development of units 3 and 4 will be CANDU 6.

Subsequently, on December 9, 2020, the agreement between the two governments was signed in Bucharest in the presence of the minister of energy Virgil Popescu, the then interim prime minister Nicolae Ciuca, Aleshia Duncan, the US Department of Energy, Kimberly Reed, the President of the Import-Export Bank of the USA and of the US ambassador to Romania at that time, Adrian Zuckerman.

On March 10, the Government adopted the draft law to ratify the agreement between the Romanian Executive and the US Executive on cooperation in connection with the Cernavoda nuclear and energy projects and in the civil nuclear energy sector in our country.

The legislative initiative was sent to the Parliament in an emergency procedure.