At a plenary session in Strasbourg, on Tuesday 21 January, a majority of MEPs called for the opportunity of nuclear fusion to be grasped to ensure the European Union’s industrial competitiveness and energy sovereignty in the future.
Only MEPs from the Greens/EFA and The Left groups were reticent about this technology, which mimics the production of energy from the sun and has no greenhouse gas emissions, but still faces technical and practical challenges.
Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, German) said it was necessary to be “realistic in the allocation of our resources” in the face of a technology that could “wait another 30 years” before being commercialised, while “onshore” renewables are already available.
The remaining political groups were in favour of this so-called “future-proof” technology.
Hildegard Bentele (EPP, German) welcomed the fact that a debate on nuclear fusion had been planned at the very beginning of the mandate, “because the Union needs affordable, safe and clean energy”. She said that European research in this area was “excellent”, but acknowledged that there were still “problems in translating this into practice and mobilising research funding”.
Nicolás González Casares (S&D, Spanish) stressed the importance of the ITER international reactor project to demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of nuclear fusion as a future energy source for use on earth - for which the EU is providing 45% of the funding - but pointed to the project’s delays and additional costs. In addition, “we still don’t have a concrete improvement programme or plan from the Commission”, he stressed. “We need to look for these improvements and make efforts to ensure that these technologies are developed with Europe”.
Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, French) felt that the ITER project was insufficient. “While we are making timid progress, the United States and the United Kingdom are deploying ambitious strategies with massive funding and clear regulatory frameworks. They attract billions of dollars in private investment and aim to be leaders in innovation. Europe cannot remain a spectator”.
Like Ondřej Krutílek (ECR, Czech), he called for the preparation of an overall innovation strategy and support for public-private partnerships, as well as “guaranteeing an appropriate regulatory framework with safety standards specific to fusion”.
In response to these requests, the Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport, Glenn Micallef, stressed that beyond international collaboration and the ITER project, the European Union will continue to engage with the private sector “to support a favourable environment for the development of an EU fusion supply chain to accelerate its commercialisation in the EU”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)