Retreat from nuclear power was ‘strategic mistake’ says Commission head
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen used a speech at the Nuclear Energy Summit in Paris to announce a new European strategy for small modular reactors (SMRs), backed by a €200m ($232m) investment guarantee funded through the European Unions’s emissions trading system.
Von der Leyen said the goal was to have SMR technology operational in Europe by the early 2030s, where it could play a role alongside traditional nuclear reactors in a flexible and efficient energy system.
She proposed three main pillars: simplified regulation through cross-border regulatory sandboxes, mobilisation of private investment through the new guarantee, and coordinated cooperation between member states on permitting, skills and supply chains.
The Commission president said Europe's share of nuclear in its electricity mix had fallen from one-third in 1990 to around 15% today, and called that decline a strategic mistake.
"I believe that it was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power," she said.
"Europe's has been a pioneer in nuclear technology and could once again lead the world in it," Von der Leyen said, adding: "A next generation nuclear reactor could become a European high-tech high-value export and this is what brings us to Paris today. Over the last years we see a global revival of nuclear energy and Europe wants to be part of it."
Von der Leyen said that nuclear and renewables were not alternatives but complements. Renewables produce the lowest-cost electricity but are dependent on weather conditions, she said, while nuclear provides reliable round-the-clock generation.
"The most efficient system combines nuclear and renewables, underpinned by storage, flexibility, and grids," she said.
She said Europe's high electricity prices were a structural problem with direct consequences for industrial competitiveness, warning that the industries and technologies of the future, including robotics and artificial intelligence, would be built on affordable electricity.
Von der Leyen said the EU had already moved to update state aid rules to expand support for nuclear, launched the world's first industrial alliance for small modular reactors, and proposed more than €5bn in its next budget for fusion research including ITER. She said the new SMR strategy was the next step in that effort.
The EU emissions trading system is the bloc’s carbon market that sets a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, industry and aviation and allows companies to buy and sell emission allowances to meet those limits.
Nuclear energy has gained greater recognition in recent EU policy frameworks. The EU sustainable finance taxonomy included nuclear under certain conditions as a low-carbon investment, and revised EU state aid rules allow governments to support nuclear power and nuclear fuel projects.
However, nuclear has been largely absent from some recent EU industrial and energy initiatives, including the REPowerEU plan and the Net-Zero Industry Act, which have focused mainly on renewables and clean technology manufacturing. Decisions on nuclear deployment remain the responsibility of individual member states.
The EU has recently reformed its electricity market design to promote long-term contracts such as contracts for difference and power purchase agreements and continues to rely on the EU emissions trading system as the core carbon pricing instrument under its Fit for 55 climate package, targeting of at least a 55 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The European Commission’s 2025 nuclear illustrative programme (Pinc) estimates that Europe requires €241bn in nuclear investment by 2050 to meet net-zero targets. The Pinc report warned that without long-term operation of existing nuclear plants, the EU’s nuclear capacity would be close to nothing by 2050, making the energy transition significantly more difficult.
The European nuclear industry has been calling on Brussels for years to apply the principle of technological neutrality to all low-carbon sources when it comes to policy support.
SMR plants have not been commercially deployed in the Western world, with first demonstration plants expected online in North America at the turn of the decade. Europe has a number of companies developing SMR technologies eyeing the 2030s for pilot deployment.
All of Europe's nuclear-powered electricity comes from a fleet of about 100 large-scale conventional reactors.
