nucleareurope presents latest European policy developments

On 12 January 2024, nucleareurope Director General Yves Desbazeille presented the latest development at European level during a webinar organised by the Università di Pisa as part of the ENEN2Plus project. 

During his intervention, Yves provided an overview of the number of nuclear facilities in Europe, examples of European companies involved in the nuclear supply chain, as well as the impact which nuclear has on the EU’s economy in terms of job creation and GDP. He then proceeded to present the challenges which Europe is currently facing including the need to rapidly achieve net zero and what this means in terms of demand for decarbonised electricity, heat and hydrogen. Furthermore, access to a stable supply of affordable energy is another area that Europe is trying tackle.

Given all of the above, he noted that policymakers now see nuclear in a different light, with a growing number of Member States openly supportive towards nuclear at both national level at in EU policy discussions. In this respect, he provided a summary of the work undertaken by the Nuclear Alliance of Member States to date, as well as the outcome of the vote on the SMR Own Initiative Report in the European Parliament.