EU countries reinstate nuclear among ‘strategic’ net-zero technologies

Following in the footsteps of the European Parliament last month, EU member states in the Council have also included nuclear energy alongside renewables among the technologies promoted by the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA).

Read the original French article here.

In mid-March, the European Commission presented its proposal for a Net-Zero Industry Act, aiming to boost the EU’s domestic capacity to manufacture the technologies considered vital to reach climate neutrality by 2050.

Nuclear power was listed among them but was not initially labelled as “strategic” to achieving climate neutrality in the same way as, for example, renewable energies.

EU ministers rectified this on Thursday (7 December) and added nuclear power to the list of “strategic” technologies as part of their “general approach” to the NZIA – despite opposition from Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.

As a result, nuclear power will benefit from streamlined licensing procedures: a one-stop-shop in each EU country and full digitisation of procedures to ensure that authorisations can be obtained within nine to 12 months.

“This is a positive and effective text,” French Industry Minister Roland Lescure said at the opening of the Council meeting in Brussels. “France was strongly in favour of including nuclear power,” his office added.

France and eight other EU countries – Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia – submitted a joint declaration before the meeting reiterating the importance of supporting nuclear power and its financing at the EU level.

On the German side, the pill is harder to swallow.

“If we follow the current discussions at COP28, we realise that we have to decarbonise quickly, and that is not possible by relying on nuclear power,” said Sven Giegold, Germany’s state secretary for economic affairs and climate protection, at the Council meeting.

For his part, the Luxembourg minister said he “regrets that nuclear technologies are considered ‘strategic'”.

Still, the Council and the European Parliament officially support nuclear power, which is a significant win for the sector.

However, the two EU co-legislators have adopted different approaches to net-zero technologies. In the Council,  EU countries have kept the Commission’s approach with two lists – one of which is considered “strategic” and the other not. In contrast, the European Parliament combined all the technologies useful for decarbonisation in a single list.

According to Lescure’s office, the issue will resurface during upcoming negotiations to finalise the text in so-called “trilogue” talks between the EU Parliament, Council and Commission.

But “a priori, there is little chance that nuclear energy will be excluded in the end,” Lescure’s office explained, adding: “We will see to it that this does not change”.

As for other nuclear technologies that are not on the list of “strategic” technologies, these have been retained as “net zero” technologies and, as such, enjoy certain advantages.

Next battle: Financing

The key remaining battle now for pro-nuclear countries is to secure financing at EU level.

“Technological neutrality must also apply to financing,” Lescure told the Council, even though the NZIA “is not a financing text but a regulatory text,” as his office pointed out.

Indeed, “there are no financial provisions in the text, except that it does not contain any financial provisions, which Germany was keen to point out,” Lescure’s office added.

Germany, meanwhile, is leading the opposition.

“EU funds cannot be used for technologies that are not supported by all member states,” Giegold said. “It was, therefore, crucial for us to exclude funding issues from the NZIA and to leave existing European rules untouched,” he added.

The NZIA will, therefore, have no impact on whether or not EU funds can finance nuclear power or not.

But according to Lescure’s office, the status quo on this point is not a problem for now. Indeed, the door is still open for nuclear technologies to be financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and other upcoming EU funds, such as the Strategic Technologies for Europe (STEP) platform, which is currently under discusssion.

“EU funds that do not finance nuclear power should do so in the future,” said a declaration adopted in July by the French-led Nuclear Alliance of 14 EU countries, which called for “impartiality” between nuclear power and renewables when it comes to EU funding.

In addition, the European Parliament’s position proposes that 25% of the revenues from the EU carbon market should be earmarked for financing the technologies listed in the NZIA.

The Council did not take up this possibility, which will be discussed at the forthcoming trilogue talks scheduled on 13 December.

“We can now begin negotiations and complete them before the European elections,” said Christian Ehler, Parliament’s rapporteur on the NZIA, on X.

[Edited by Frédéric Simon/Alice Taylor]

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