United in diversity - A nuclear renaissance in Europe to pave the way to a climate-neutral, competitive and resilient European Union
We, the Leaders of the European Nuclear Alliance (1), meet at a critical moment for our European Union and its Strategic Agenda for the future. The decisions we make now will contribute decisively to the future of the Union’s transition towards climate neutrality by 2050 and our success in shaping a competitive and prosperous European Union while reinforcing our energy security and resilience.
Taking note of the urgent need to diversify our energy portfolio and reducing our strategic dependencies, we affirm that nuclear energy, alongside renewable energy, is a cost-competitive solution to meet the growing demand for fossil-free electricity and mitigate climate change thanks to its low-carbon footprint. Nuclear energy is the readily-available fossil-free technology able to produce consistent base-load dispatchable power, ensuring both our collective security of supply and the necessary flexibility in our electricity market. The development of nuclear energy and its value chain will not only bolster our energy transition but will also stimulates economic growth and industrial development, create high-skilled jobs, as well as foster cutting-edge technologies, positioning Europe as a global hub for nuclear innovation.
We reiterate our shared objective of reducing our strategic dependencies, in particular on Russian suppliers. To that end, we will work together and with the European Commission and support likeminded international efforts, with a view to bring about a strong European nuclear industry and guarantee the security of supply of nuclear materials, particularly nuclear fuel, for power and non-power uses.
For those reasons, the European Nuclear Alliance was launched one year ago. Since then, it has strengthened the cooperation between like-minded countries, contributing to a new momentum around nuclear energy and a strong paradigm shift in the European Union. We welcome the recent achievements in the European legislation towards a greater consideration of nuclear energy in order to achieve our ambitious climate targets and enhance our energy security. Still, much remains to be done to ensure that we unleash the full potential of civil nuclear technologies and other net-zero energy technologies.
As leaders of the European Nuclear Alliance, we are determined to pursue and intensify our cooperation to set an enabling European framework for the deployment of nuclear energy. We commit to:
- Developing access to private and public financing, and exploring the possibilities and benefits of European financing instruments, in order to support large-scale reactors, SMR technologies and associated European value chain. All net-zero technologies including nuclear energy and value chain should be leveraged, possibilities and benefits of financing instruments such as support of the EIB and Innovation Fund will be explored to that end. We encourage all financial institutions to classify nuclear power with all other zero- or low-emission energy sources to boost the successful implementation of our climate agenda.
- Developing a skilled and diverse nuclear workforce for all civil nuclear applications. We strongly encourage governments and all stakeholders, industries and universities to lay the foundations for a European consortium on nuclear skills, covering both academic and professional training, and deployment of staff between national nuclear programs. We stress out the need and opportunity to involve more women into the nuclear industry to enhance the workforce and improve gender equality. We welcome synergies and common projects among European universities.
- Scaling-up industrial, research and innovation collaboration across a European value chain through concrete projects. Joint work, between industries and Member States, will be conducted to enhance the security of supply, the resilience, decarbonization and cost-effectiveness of EU supply chains, production capabilities for components, systems, structures, nuclear fuels, including through recycling. We warmly welcome the launch of the small modular reactors (SMR) Industrial Alliance by the European Commission which will accelerate the deployment of SMRs and ensure a strong European supply chain, including a skilled workforce, and adequate regulatory framework.
- Respecting the national choices of all Member States with regards to the decarbonization of their energy mix to strengthen our unity. We call for the full recognition of the contribution of both nuclear and renewable energies for achieving our 2050 climate neutrality target and ensuring our energy security in the future. This will allow for active support to Member States that wish to accelerate their efforts to move away from coal by deploying solutions based on nuclear energy.
Europe must be a global leader in the green transition and in nuclear energy production and deployment. Our action today will deliver a paradigm shift in our energy policy for a stronger Europe in net-zero technology markets and industries of the future. Nuclear energy, alongside renewable energy, will power our long-term growth and competitiveness strategy as the backbone of our industrial decarbonization deal towards climate neutrality by 2050.
(1) Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden.
