The Czech Prime Minister, Petr Fiala, reiterated the importance of nuclear energy for his country, “as one of the ways to achieve our climate objectives“ he said in Prague on Tuesday 26 September, in a statement to the press with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
Mr Fiala described the finalisation of the European notification procedure for the construction of new generating units at the Dukovany power station as a “huge priority” for his government. And he indicated that his country will need new-generation small modular plants.
As she had done at the Green Deal Summit conference that very morning, Ms von der Leyen reiterated that the choice of energy mix remains a matter for the Member States. With regard to the investments that the Czech Republic wants to make in the nuclear sector, she indicated that the Commission was “always willing to consider State aid, of course, provided the conditions are right”. She added that “this is also why we support cutting-edge nuclear technology under our Net-Zero Industry Act, to boost innovation and cross-border cooperation”, (see EUROPE 13143/1).
The question of including nuclear power in the ‘NZIA’ is controversial both in the EU Council (see EUROPE 13185/3) and in the European Parliament (see EUROPE 13254/3).
Ms von der Leyen also welcomed the fact that energy prices in the EU had been brought back to pre-Russian military invasion levels in Ukraine, after peaking at up to ten times higher levels in the summer of 2022. According to her, if investment in renewable energies continues at the current rate in the EU, Europeans will “soon be protected against the high prices of imported fossil fuels”.
Aware of the importance of the automobile industry in the Czech Republic, the President of the Commission also spoke of the “unfair competition” suffered by European companies from “heavily subsidised” competitors from third countries. “This is why we are launching an anti-subsidy investigation into electric vehicles coming from China” she stressed, as the Vice-President of the EU institution, Valdis Dombrovskis, was in China until Tuesday to explain the European approach (see EUROPE 13257/19). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)