Tomorrow, on the sidelines of the European Energy Council, the French Minister for Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher will bring together, for the first time since her return to the Roquelaure hotel, the fifteen or so members of the nuclear alliance . The opportunity for Paris and its allies to defend the role of civil atom in the decarbonization of the Old Continent, at a time when Brussels’ position remains uncertain.
Indeed, while the President of the European Commission, the German Ursula Von der Leyen, had undertaken an astonishing shift in favor of uranium fission at the end of her first mandate and the Czech Minister of Industry Jozef Sikela, a great defender of nuclear power, was tipped to become energy commissioner, but the outcome was quite different. The president respectively entrusted the portfolio of Energy and that of the Directorate General of Competition to the Danish Dan Jorgensen and the Spanish Teresa Ribera. Two notorious opponents of the atom. Enough to sow doubt on the real intentions of the Brussels executive.
Obtain a strong commitment from the new Energy Commissioner
However, to ensure that atomic fission benefits from treatment similar to other carbon-free technologies in the name of the principle of “technological neutrality”, Paris will be able to count on the support of the parliamentary intergroup on nuclear power. According to our information, this training intends to put pressure on the new energy commissioner during his hearing scheduled between November 4 and 12 in order to secure the great return of nuclear power within Europe’s energy policy.
“I want Dan Jorgensen to commit during his hearing to publishing a nuclear strategy for the next five years,” entrust to The TribuneMEP Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe), at the head of the intergroup, which was to bring together some 120 MEPs, as many as during the previous mandate.
This sequence of hearings will be key since the appointment of commissioners is subject to the approval of Parliament, which has a right of veto. However, certain commissioners appointed by the Council have already been rejected in the past. It remains that it would be a question here “more of a posture game”estime Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, researcher on European and French energy policies at the Jacques Delors Institute. According to him, there is “There are few concerns about the nuclear issue” to the extent that we witness “hyper-presidentialization” from Ursula Von der Leyen. “It is she who will set the guideline on nuclear power and who will make the arbitrations. However, it recently gave assurances on the role of nuclear power,” underlines the researcher, referring to the Prague speech of August 30. The president then said that the EU needed more nuclear power.
Setting production objectives on the scale of the Old Continent
“Such a publication would be a first because there has never really been a real nuclear strategy on a European scale », affirms, for his part, Christophe Grudler.
And this, even if the Euratom treaty, signed in 1957, provides, in its article 40, that “the Commission periodically publishes programs of an indicative nature relating in particular to nuclear energy production objectives and to the investments of all kinds involved in their achievement”. “The last indicative nuclear program (PINC) dates back to 2016 and focused only on investments linked to post-Fukushima safety improvements and the operational safety of existing installations,” points out the MEP. “Hence the relevance of proposing a new PINC”, he continues. Which would focus on production objectives, the question of financing, and the timetable for nuclear fusion around the international ITER program, located in Cadarache, in the south of France.
“Today, the European Union has around 100 gigawatts (GW) of installed nuclear capacity. To meet the objectives of the Green Deal, it would be necessary to reach 150 GW by 2050, an effort of 50%, says Renew MEP. Which raises the question of financing massive investments: should the European Investment Bank (EIB) be involved? What about taxonomy? »
Obtain financing from the EIB
The EIB’s participation in the relaunch of civil atoms has become one of the main battles in Paris. Already, last March, on the occasion of a major rally on nuclear power organized by the Belgian Prime Minister and the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), Emmanuel Macron had pleaded for support from the financial institution . If the EIB currently does not have a principled position against nuclear power, it must obtain the approval of all its members to authorize financing. “However, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg are fiercely opposed to it,” recalled last March Teva Meyer, researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris) and specialist in the geopolitics of civil nuclear power.
Nuclear: France tackles the hot topic of international financing
Several openings nevertheless remain possible. First, the Spaniard Nadia Calviño, less closed on the issue, recently succeeded the German Werner Hoyer as president of the EIB. Next, several observers believe that it would be possible to obtain a European consensus on the financing of smaller nuclear projects, such as small modular reactors (SMR) and advanced modular reactors (AMR) as well as industrial tools linked to the energy cycle. fuel, in particular to put an end to European dependence on Russia for enriched uranium. “The question of possible financing by the EIB could be raised,” tomorrow during the meeting of members of the Energy Alliance, Agnès Pannier-Runacher’s entourage told the press.
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