“A favorable industrial and financial framework for nuclear projects to promote research and innovation, in particular for small modular reactors and advanced modular reactors“. This is the message launched by thirteen Member States, at the end of a meeting with the European Commission. Among the signatories of the document are Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. A joint declaration to let down the EU green utopia.

The development of research in the nuclear sector has always been the primary objective of the French government, which also in this case has placed itself in the front row among the Member States in favor of adding the mini-reactors in question to nuclear power plants. The goal would be to achieve climate targets and objectives by 2050, a hypothesis that today is highly remote.

The atom is “a key technology, along with renewable energy, to achieve our climate goals and carbon neutrality in 2050“. In this perspective, the 13 signatory governments consider “essential the strengthening of industrial cooperation, European value chains and the facilitation of financial capacities“, alongside the distant mirage (at least for now) of developing technological independence.

The European Commission, already yesterday, had announced its intention to study the application of guidelines in this regard, but the decision, as stated by the Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, will be up to the Nations. And the member countries seem far from united.

Belgium and the Netherlands, in fact, after the meeting of pro-nuclear states, participated in a further meeting, promoted by Austria, which counted the participation of eleven other countries (Austria, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Estonia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, Luxembourg, and Latvia), regarding renewable energy.