Hence they had to build one ginormous reactor, facing numerous issues caused by venturing into the limits of maximum power per reactor.
Had they permitted 4 * 400MW instead of 1 * 1600MW, the plant would have been in production for years already.
Paradoxically this large-reactor approach was intended to reduce costs but has spectacularly failed to do so with cost overruns of factors of 3 (in this case) and over 5 (from Flammanville).
I would think building another one like this should be less of an ordeal. Too bad the sister project at Flamanville was started too early after this one to benefit from the lessons learned.
There have actually been quite a few new reactors brought online in the past two decades in France, the UAE, Russia and Belarus. This is a brand new design though, and construction was started in multiple countries at similar points in time.
Uh? Not a single one.