Pro-nuclear countries back total opening up of EU funding for nuclear

Nuclear technologies should benefit from all types of EU funding, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and innovation funds, the French-led nuclear alliance, which now has 12 EU member states, said at its meeting on Monday (4 March).

The nuclear alliance met for the first time on Monday with representatives from Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden. Italy and Belgium – which holds the rotating EU presidency until July – also attended as observers.

For the first time, the alliance met without its initiator, former French energy transition minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who was replaced by Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire and his minister delegate for energy, Roland Lescure, in the latest government reshuffle earlier this year.

At the meeting, the pro-nuclear states reiterated their call to end financial discrimination against low-carbon energy they made last July, although they were more specific this time. “We discussed the opportunity to launch a working group on European instruments to deploy nuclear reactors in the EU and associated European value chain within the nuclear alliance,” the alliance’s joint declaration states.

The aim is to explore the possibilities and benefits of financing instruments, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) support, Innovation Fund, state aid guidelines, or ‘important projects of common European interest’.

Source: ECEEE