In her State of the Union address on Wednesday 10 September, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, left no room for doubt that nuclear power would be recognised as an integral part of the EU’s energy policy, alongside renewable energies.
“We need to generate more homegrown renewables, with nuclear power as a baseload”, she told MEPs in the European Parliament Chamber in Strasbourg.
This is a change of tone from her last State of the Union address in 2023, which referred only to clean or renewable energy. This declaration is part of the gradual change of direction initiated by the Commission since the energy crisis of 2022.
In line with the new Franco-German axis. This position was welcomed by the defenders of the atom, starting with France. “A year ago, nuclear power was still banned from European energy policy. Today, it is in the State of the Union address”, welcomed a source in the entourage of the outgoing French Minister for Industry and Energy, Marc Ferracci.
This “profound change” applauded by Paris is illustrated on the European political scene by the newly acquired support of Germany, led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz. For example, the conclusions of the Franco-German Council of Ministers on 29 August recognise “non-discrimination between all neutral and low-carbon energy technologies (...) (see EUROPE 13698/8)”.
However, Emmanuel Brutin, Director General of NuclearEurope, the trade association representing the European nuclear industry, hopes that future policies will “reflect this approach and support the major investments planned by the industry”.
The Commission President’s comments come as the Court of Justice of the EU has just authorised the inclusion of certain nuclear and fossil gas activities in the Taxonomy Regulation, which defines what is considered a green or sustainable activity (see other news).
Criticism of the trade agreement with the United States. Beyond the technological issues at stake, several of the people we spoke to pointed out an inconsistency in Ms Von der Leyen’s speech, between the desire for energy independence and lower energy prices on the one hand, and the trade agreement sealed on 27 July with the Trump administration on the other.
MEPs in the Chamber, including the Chairs of the Socialists and Democrats Groups, Iratxe García Pérez (Spanish), and the Greens/EFA Group, Bas Eickhout (German), criticised the “crazy” energy part of the trade agreement. This includes a commitment by the EU to import $750 billion of US energy over three years.
“American energy is more polluting than anything we’ve seen before, and you want to use it to replace Russian liquefied natural gas, which currently accounts for just €10 billion of imports a year. These figures do not add up”, criticised Mr Eickhout.
New network infrastructure initiative. Among the new features announced, Ms von der Leyen unveiled a new initiative entitled ‘Energy Highways’ aimed at “removing the bottlenecks” that are hampering the development of the EU’s grid infrastructures.
The Commission has identified eight critical areas “from the Øresund strait to the Sicilian Channel”, where the electricity grid infrastructure is unable to transport energy efficiently due to limits on transmission capacity or ageing infrastructure.
In particular, it mentions the need to improve electricity interconnections in the Trans-Pyrenees between France and Spain, to better integrate the Iberian Peninsula with continental Europe, following the massive blackout last April (see EUROPE 13645/7).
The Commission’s initiative is in addition to the ‘grids’ package expected by the end of the year, which aims to modernise Europe’s energy infrastructures in order to support renewable energies, electrification and industrial transformation.
Link to Ms von der Leyen’s speech: https://aeur.eu/f/icl
See her letter of intent: https://aeur.eu/f/icn (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)