The leaders of seven European countries have issued an “urgent call” to the European commission to ensure “a true level playing field for nuclear power” in the EU without excluding it from EU climate and energy policies and incentives.

In a joint letter to the commission, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia noted that half of EU countries use or develop nuclear power, which provides close to half of EU low-emission generation.

In the letter the leaders call on the commission to ensure that EU energy and climate policy accommodates all paths to climate neutrality according to the technology neutrality principle. All available and future zero and low-emission technologies must be treated equally within all policies, including Europe’s taxonomy of sustainable investments, aiming at achieving climate neutrality by 2050, the letter says.