A group of pro-nuclear EU countries led by France will present a paper to the European Commission on Tuesday asking for a “level playing field” for nuclear energy in the bloc’s fight against climate change, a draft of the paper seen by Reuters showed.
In the draft dated July 3, the countries ask the Commission to promote Europe’s nuclear industry in its efforts to decarbonise energy supplies and reach the 27-member bloc’s Net Zero emissions by a 2050 target.
The meeting, hosted by France’s energy minister, will take place alongside an informal meeting of the EU’s environment and energy ministers in Valladolid, Spain.
“The EU should use all the tools at its disposal to combat climate change. Renewable energies of course but also all decarbonised sources and that includes nuclear,” a French energy ministry official said.
The countries state that while nuclear was included in the EU’s taxonomy as a green investment, the industry is not treated equally with renewables in legislation or in financing and as a result Europe’s global competitiveness will suffer.
The EU Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nuclear energy can produce baseload CO2-free electricity in large quantities, and European countries including Romania and the Netherlands are looking to increase their nuclear capacity while others such as Poland are planning their first reactors.
“EU legislation, in particular related to Electricity Market Design, must respect the principle of technology neutrality between fossil-free assets,” the document said, adding that the Commission should have a technology neutral approach in general.
Spain, which holds the EU presidency until the end of the year, has made clinching a deal on the electricity market one of its key priorities so that the law has a chance to pass before EU Parliament elections next year.
Nuclear has been a long-standing bugbear in key pieces of climate and energy legislation this year. The passage into law of the revised Renewables Energy Directive (RED) was held up at the eleventh hour by France citing nuclear-related concerns and now EU countries are at loggerheads on rules on state aid for power plants in the proposed electricity market reform.
Further, the paper asks the EU commission to update all of the bloc’s investment funds to avoid discrimination against nuclear energy.
“Nuclear should be eligible in all investment funds such as the Modernization Fund, Innovation Fund, Just Transition Fund, InvestEU fund,” the document stated.
“Furthermore, nuclear technologies should not be discriminated against in lending strategies of financial institutions, such as EIB (European Investment Bank) or EBRD (European Bank of Reconstruction and Development).”
Source: Reuters
